‘Build-up’ pointer to broader ambitions

Surface-to-air missiles moved to Paracels: US

HONG KONG/BEIJING, Feb 21, (RTRS): From listening posts to jet fighter deployments and now surfaceto-air missiles, China’s expanding facilities in the Paracel Islands are a signal of long-term plans to strengthen its military reach across the disputed South China Sea.

Diplomats and security experts in contact with Chinese military strategists say Beijing’s moves to arm and expand its long-established holdings in the Paracels will likely be replicated on its man-made islands in the more contentious Spratly archipelago, some 500 kms (300 miles) further south.

Eventually, both disputed island groups are expected be used for jet fighter operations and constant surveillance, including anti-submarine patrols, while also housing significant civilian populations in a bid to buttress China’s sovereign claims.

Crucially, that would give Beijing the reach to try to enforce any effective air defence zone in the South China Sea, similar to the zone it created over the East China Sea in late 2013.

US officials confirmed on Thursday the “very recent” placement of surfaceto-air missiles on Woody Island, the site of the largest Chinese presence on the Paracels, criticising the move as contrary to China’s commitments not to militarise its claims in the South China Sea. Beijing says it is entitled to “limited defensive facilities” on its territory, and dismissed reports about the missile placement as media “hype”.

Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, said he believed similar weapons could be deployed to China’s hold-

ties, patronage politics and showbiz-like campaigns have long been a concern in the Philippines, which continues to grapple with widespread poverty, Marxist and Muslim insurgencies, corruption and other major problems three decades after toppling a dictatorship via a “people power” revolt.

The elections commission brought back the presidential debates, which were last held in 1992, to allow Filipino voters to scrutinize the main contenders and help them “vote correctly,” Bautista said. After Sunday’s debate, held at a university in southern Cagayan de Oro city, two more ings in the Spratlys within a year or two. “This would enable China to back up its warnings with real capabilities,” he said.

Bonnie Glaser, a military analyst at the Centre for Security and International Studies in Washington, said the Paracels build-up was a likely precursor to similar military deployments on China’s recent reclamations in the Spratlys.

Operations

While Chinese officials might use on-going US operations in the South China Sea as justification, “there is a plan that has been in place for quite some time”, Glaser said.

The HQ-9 missile batteries, guided by radar tracking systems, have a range of 200 km (125 miles) and are the most significant defensive weapon China has yet placed on the Paracels, regional military attaches say.

The move could complicate surveillance patrols carried out routinely by US and Japanese aircraft as well as flights by US B-52 long-range bombers, operations China objected to last November. It could also challenge operations by Vietnam’s expanding fleet of Russian-built SU-30 jet fighters.

China’s expansion of the Paracels, which it has occupied since forcing the navy of the-then South Vietnam off the islands in 1974, pre-dates its moves to begin large-scale reclamations on seven reefs in the Spratlys three years ago.

It landed fully-armed jet fighters on an expanded airstrip on Woody Island in November, and reinforced hangars have been completed, regional diplomats said. Coast guard and fishing facilities have also been expanded, along will be staged in March and April ahead of the May 9 election.

The candidates were asked questions on a range of issues, including their antipoverty and anti-crime strategies and how they would solve the decades-long Muslim insurrection in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic nation.

President Benigno Aquino III, who won with a landslide margin on a promise to battle poverty and corruption in 2010, ends his six-year term in June.

Under Aquino, the economy has been growing steadily. His predecessor has been with fuel storage tanks and housing for more than 1,000 civilians in what was declared “Sansha City” in 2012, Chinese analysts say.

Radar coverage and other electronic surveillance equipment has also been improved, and analysts expect the Paracels to play a key part in protecting China’s nuclear armed submarine fleet on Hainan Island, 200 km to the north.

Speaking privately, Vietnamese officials say it is now far more difficult for their fishing fleets and coast guard to get close to the Paracels as they try to assert their own sovereign claims.

A similar build-up in the Spratlys would give China its first permanent military presence deep in the maritime heart of Southeast Asia, military attaches say.

China claims most of the South China Sea and while Vietnam and Taiwan also claim both archipelagoes in their entirety, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei also claim part of the Spratlys.

Trade

The waterway carries some $5 trillion in seaborne trade each year.

Chinese officials have repeatedly stressed the civilian nature of the Spratlys expansion, including lighthouses, search and rescue bases and environment research stations.

Three runways have recently been completed and China last month announced the first successful test landings of civilian airliners on the new 3,000-metre airstrip at Fiery Cross reef.

Chinese analysts say the first military flights from the Spratlys could start within months.

Wu Shicun, the head of China’s detained on an elections fraud charge and three senators were separately detained on corruption charges under Aquino’s antigraft fight.

But daunting challenges remain, led by the poverty that grips about a fourth of the Philippines’ 100 million people, forcing about a tenth of the population to seek jobs and better opportunities abroad.

The presidential contenders are VicePresident Jejomar Binay; Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of southern Davao city, where he has carved an image for his tough anti-crime campaign; Sen. Grace Poe, the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said lessons learnt from the Paracels expansion could be transferred to the Spratlys, particularly to manage water supplies and waste.

“There is no real dispute in the Paracels...so the development on the Paracels has been much faster and governance has also been more complete,” he said. Yanmei Xie, a Beijing-based security analyst with the International Crisis Group think-tank, said China would seek to exploit dual-use facilities, such as radars and runways, on the Spratlys but would be cautious about openly deploying military assets.

“The Spratly Islands are more complicated because they involve every claimant,” she said. “It can be more costly to China diplomatically and geopolitically.”

Vietnam protested to China on Friday at a “serious violation” of its sovereignty over Beijing’s apparent deployment of an advanced missile system on a disputed South China Sea island, while Australia and New Zealand urged Chinese restraint.

Tensions between China and its neighbours over maritime territory have risen since Taiwan and US officials said Beijing had placed surfaceto-air missiles on Woody Island, part of the Paracel archipelago it controls.

“Vietnam is deeply concerned about the actions by China. These are serious infringements of Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Paracels, threatening peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and flight,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said in a statement.

adopted daughter of a popular movie couple; former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who has been endorsed by Aquino; and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, a feisty former trial court judge. (AP)

WB OKs $450m funding:

The World Bank on Saturday approved $450 million of funding for the Philippines’ flagship anti-poverty program, which will provide basic healthcare and education to millions of families until 2019.

The financing, under the bank’s Social Welfare Development and Reform Project II, will cover about 7 per cent of the total cost of implementing what is known as the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program. Manila has allocated about 62.7 billion peso ($1.32 billion) from its 2016 budget for the scheme, which is expanding this year to cover 4.6 million households.

“The World Bank is steadfast in its commitment and support for the CCT because we believe it contributes to reducing extreme poverty and inequality,” said Cecilia Vales, the World Bank’s acting country director for the Philippines. (RTRS)

‘Commandos killed terror suspect’:

Philippine police say they stand by their statement that police commandos killed an elusive Malaysian terror suspect wanted by the US after a group claimed that it was the militant’s aide who shot him to death last year.

The killing of Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as Marwan, sparked an outcry because 44 police Special Action Force members were killed in the highly secretive assault in southern Mamasapano town when they got drawn in clashes with different rebels. (AP)