China again pressed on islands
The U.S. ‘is deeply concerned about’ the man-made land in the South China Sea.
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Saturday called for China to halt its rapid island-building in the South China Sea, warning that the projects on rocky shoals and reefs was causing instability in the Asia-Pacific region.
“The United States is deeply concerned about the pace and scope of land reclamation in the South China Sea,” Carter said in a speech to an annual security policy forum in Singapore that included defense officials from more that 30 countries, including China. He cited “the potential for these activities to increase the risk of miscalculation or conflict.”
U.S. surveillance photos show that China has placed two mobile artillery guns on one of the islands in the last few months, two Pentagon military officials said Friday. Carter did not mention the deployment of the weapons, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Carter emphasized that the U.S. was seeking a peaceful resolution of the territorial disputes in the resourcerich waters. But his characterization of the islands as “massive outposts” and his warnings against “militarization” of the South China Sea were among the bluntest warnings yet to Beijing by a senior U.S. official.
Pentagon officials said the artillery did not pose a risk to U.S. warships and planes, which have long operated in the South China Sea. However, the move was a worrisome indication that China intends to use the new islands as military outposts, they said.
Carter said the area of the man-made islands is not considered Chinese territorial waters under international law. He called for an immediate halt to the sand dredging by all countries and for a diplomatic effort to resolve overlapping territorial claims in the sea.
A transcript of Carter’s remarks was released by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank that hosts the Singapore forum. Carter is on an 11-day trip to Asia that will also take him to Vietnam and India.
A Chinese military officer in the audience rejected Carter’s claim that China might threaten freedom of navigation in the heavily traveled sea lanes.
“The freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is not at all an issue because the freedom has never been affected,” said Senior Col. Zhao Xiaozhuo of China’s Academy of Military Science, Reuters news agency reported. “It is wrong to criticize China for affecting peace and stability through construction activities.”
China has created about 2,000 acres of land since last year on coral outcrops in the Spratly Archipelago, Carter said. U.S. forces will continue to “fly, sail and operate” in the region to ensure the freedom of navigation and overflight permitted by international law, he said.
The Pentagon this month released video of an incident in which Chinese personnel issued radio warnings to a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft near several of the islands. Also this month, a Navy combat ship designed for near-shore operations passed close to the Spratly Islands and was shadowed by Chinese warships.
China recently outlined an updated military strategy that called for focusing on making its navy capable not only of defending its coastline but projecting power into the open ocean.
China’s navy “will gradually shift its focus” to “open seas protection” and to building an “efficient marine combat force,” a strategy paper released by Beijing said. “The traditional mentality that land outweighs sea must be abandoned.”
The paper described other countries’ claims to parts of the South China Sea as illegal and noted that several of them maintain a small but permanent military presence on islands and reefs claimed by China.
“Some of its offshore neighbors take provocative actions and reinforce their military presence on China’s reefs and islands that they have illegally occupied,” the paper said.
It referred to President Obama’s 2011 “rebalance” of U.S. military forces to the Asia-Pacific region, a policy that has seen the Pentagon step up joint exercises with countries on China’s periphery and deploy new warships and advanced fighters to the region.
“The U.S. carries on its ‘rebalancing’ strategy and enhances its military presence and its military alliance in the region,” the Chinese paper said, citing “external countries that are busy meddling in South China Sea affairs” and “constant close-in air and sea surveillance.”
The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also claim portions of the sea in a dispute that has simmered for decades.