China Spends Billions of Dollars in Islands Building Certainly for Defense

Yongshu Reef (Fiery Cross Reef) airport.

It is common sense that China has incurred billions of dollars costs in building its large artificial islands first of all for defense, i.e. military purpose, especially at such high speed.

Therefore, there is no need for US think tank to make analysis on satellite images as indicated by Reuters report “China can deploy warplanes on artificial islands any time: think tank” yesterday. However, if the US wants to attack China from the South China Sea, it certainly has to monitor the islands to see what weapons have been deployed there.

However, what military strength the US has to attack China now?

With submarines? With the group of artificial islands, China certainly has built a powerful anti-submarine network there.

With aircraft carriers? China can increase its deployment of warplanes in the three airports on artificial islands there much more than all US carriers can deploy.

Sorry, the US is now a “hegemon” that lacks the strength to attack China. However, it has strong desire to attack China in order to maintain its hegemony. Otherwise, why the think tank has to be busy in monitoring the islands and making analysis?

However, by so doing, the US is helping Chinese President Xi Jinping rally Chinese people around him to make joint efforts to realize his Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation so as to be able to resist US attack.

Stupid US! It wants to contain China but, on the contrary, is doing things to facilitate China’s rise.

Comment by Chan Kai Yee on Reuters’ report, full text of which is reblogged below:

China can deploy warplanes on artificial islands any time: think tank

By David Brunnstrom | WASHINGTON Mon Mar 27, 2017 | 8:03pm EDT

China appears to have largely completed major construction of military infrastructure on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea and can now deploy combat planes and other military hardware there at any time, a U.S. think tank said on Monday.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), part of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the work on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands included naval, air, radar and defensive facilities.

The think tank cited satellite images taken this month, which its director, Greg Poling, said showed new radar antennas on Fiery Cross and Subi.

“So look for deployments in the near future,” he said.

China has denied U.S. charges that it is militarizing the South China Sea, although last week Premier Li Keqiang said defense equipment had been placed on islands in the disputed waterway to maintain “freedom of navigation.”

AMTI said China’s three air bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracel chain further north would allow its military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea, a key global trade route that Beijing claims most of.

Several neighboring states have competing claims in the sea, which is widely seen as a potential regional flashpoint.

The think tank said advanced surveillance and early-warning radar facilities at Fiery Cross, Subi, and Cuarteron Reefs, as well as Woody Island, and smaller facilities elsewhere gave it similar radar coverage.

It said China had installed HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles at Woody Island more than a year ago and had deployed anti-ship cruise missiles there on at least one occasion.

It had also constructed hardened shelters with retractable roofs for mobile missile launchers at Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief and enough hangars at Fiery Cross for 24 combat aircraft and three larger planes, including bombers.

U.S. officials told Reuters last month that China had finished building almost two dozen structures on Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross that appeared designed to house long-range surface-to-air missiles.

In his Senate confirmation hearing in January, new U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson angered China by saying it should be denied access to islands it had built up in the South China Sea.

He subsequently softened his language, saying that in the event of an unspecified “contingency,” the United States and its allies “must be capable of limiting China’s access to and use of” those islands to pose a threat.

In recent years, the United States has conducted a series of what it calls freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea, raising tensions with Beijing.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; editing by Matt Spetalnick and Richard Chang)

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