PENTAGON DISINVITES CHINA FROM MAJOR US MILITARY EXERCISE

The Pentagon on Wednesday disinvited China from a major US-hosted naval drill in response to the latter’s militarization of islands in the South China Sea, a decision Beijing called unconstructive.

“As an initial response to China’s continued militarization of the South China Sea we have disinvited the PLA Navy from the 2018 Rim of the Pacific (Rimpac) Exercise,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Logan, a spokesperson for the Pentagon.

PLA is the English-language acronym of China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army.

Logan did not specify what else the US government might do to respond but stressed there was “strong evidence” that China had deployed antiship missiles, surface-to-air missile systems and electronic jammers to contested features in the Spratly Islands.

‘Unconstructive move’

“We find that a very unconstructive move,” the Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councilor Wang Yi, told reporters in Washington after meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Wang described China’s activity in the South China Sea as self-defense, saying it was working on a “much smaller scale” than what the United States had done in Hawaii and Guam.

“We hope that the US will change such a negative mindset,” he said.

In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang told a daily news briefing on Thursday that China had sovereign rights in the South China Sea and it was unrealistic for the United States to use this kind of action to try to coerce it.

In a brief statement, China’s defense ministry said the United States had “ignored the facts and hyped up the so-called militarization of the South China Sea.”

“This decision by the United States is not constructive. Closing the door to communication at any time is not conducive toward promoting mutual trust and communication between the Chinese and USmilitaries,” it added.

Being invited or not invited cannot change China’s intention to play a role in protecting peace and stability in the AsiaPacific region, the ministry said in a statement.

Nuclear-capable bombers

Over the weekend, China’s Air Force landed nuclear-capable bomber planes on disputed islands and reefs in the South China Sea as part of a training exercise in the region, triggering concern from Vietnam and the Philippines.

Satellite photographs taken on May 12 showed China appeared to have deployed truckmounted surface-to-air missiles or antiship cruise missiles on Woody Island in the Paracel island chain to the north of the Spratlys, said Greg Poling, a South China Sea expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Poling, who heads the CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, said the images showed China had also deployed J-11 combat aircraft as part of its exercises.

He said later satellite images, taken on May 20 and published by Fox News, showed the missile systems still in place, suggesting they could be there to stay.

The Rimpac exercise is billed as the world’s largest international maritime exercise, held every two years in Hawaii in June and July, and China has attended previously.

Largely symbolic

Abraham Denmark, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia under then US President Barack Obama, said the move was largely symbolic.

“To me it shows that the relationship is veering toward increasingly intense competition and the Pentagon sees diminishing returns on the value of military to military cooperation with China,” Denmark said.

US President Donald Trump has praised China in recent months for its help in putting pressure on North Korea, even amid concerns about a potential trade war between Washington and Beijing, the world’s two largest economies.

Consequences

Earlier this month the United States said it had raised concerns with China about its latest militarization of the South China Sea and said there would be near-term and long-term consequences.

Pentagon officials have long complained that China has not been candid enough about its rapid military buildup and using South China Sea islands to gather intelligence in the region.

Chinese officials have accused Washington of viewing their country in suspicious “Cold War” terms.

“On the so-called militarization in the South China Sea, we talked about this issue just now ... It is a normal deployment and has nothing to do with militarization,” Wang said.