By Prashanth Parameswaran
Beijing is just getting started, and its actions demand a response.
Earlier this week, China announced that it had completed some of its land reclamation activities on the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. As I have written previously, what these announcements really mean is that as we suspected, Beijing is shifting the focus from building new illegal islands to constructing military facilities on them (See: “The Truth About China’s South China Sea Land Reclamation Announcement”). Needless to say, these provocative acts risk further damaging regional peace and stability and undermining U.S. interests. As the emphasis moves to this dimension of China’s challenge in the South China Sea it is worth thinking about what this means and how Washington and other actors can begin to confront it.
The first step is to be clear about what China is doing and what this means for other claimant states, the United States and other interested actors. On the first point, the latest public satellite imagery confirms what some have long known – Beijing is building military facilities on several features, some of which can be used for offensive purposes against other claimants and states (See: “How Close is China to Another South China Sea Airstrip?”). These include an airstrip, troop garrisons, anti-air and anti-surface guns and radar and communications equipment. These facilities will boost China’s ability to patrol surrounding waters and monitor the activities of their claimants, thereby making it easier for Beijing to assert its own (extensive) claims and blunt other claimants’ efforts to challenge it from doing so.
Read the full story at The Diplomat