China’s rapid island-building strategy

Don’t start a fire in Asia, China warns Obama after Vietnam arms embargo lifted


A model of a fighter jet is displayed at the Vietnam People's Air Force Museum in Hanoi. President Obama announced the United States is lifting its embargo on sales of lethal weapons to Vietnam. (Linh Pham/Getty Images)
By Simon Denyer May 24 at 10:52 AM
BEIJING — China warned President Obama on Tuesday not to spark a fire in Asia after he announced the lifting of a long-standing embargo on lethal arms sales to Vietnam.

Obama unveiled the historic step on Monday during his first visit to Vietnam, insisting the move was “not based on China” while simultaneously acknowledging that Washington and Hanoi share a common concern about China’s actions in the South China Sea.

Beijing, not surprisingly, was unimpressed. It has a complex relationship with its southern neighbor: The two governments are united in their communist ideology and distaste for Western democracy but are historical adversaries and fought their latest border war in 1979. They now fiercely contest sovereignty over many small islands in the South China Sea.

The United States and Vietnam must not spark a “regional tinderbox,” the Communist Party mouthpiece,China Daily, warned in an editorial Tuesday, noting concerns that Obama’s move was meant to “curb the rise of China.”

“This, if true, bodes ill for regional peace and stability,” it argued.

Obama lifts embargo on arms trade with Vietnam
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President Barack Obama says the U.S. will fully lift an embargo on the sale of lethal weapons to Vietnam, its former enemy. (Reuters)
The United States accuses China of militarizing the South China Sea by turning contested reefs and rocks into putative military bases.

Beijing says it is only asserting its “indisputable” sovereignty over the islands and charges that the United States is interfering by encouraging rival claimants to antagonize China.

[China assertiveness pushes Vietnam to old foe, the United States]

The nationalist Global Times tabloid called Obama’s claim that the Vietnam move was not aimed at China “a very poor lie,” adding that it would exacerbate the “strategic antagonism between Washington and Beijing.”

While not an official mouthpiece, the Global Times nevertheless often represents a strain of nationalist thinking within the ruling Communist Party.

It accused Washington of trying to knit three nets around China — in ideology, in security and in economy and trade — in an attempt to secure its dominance of the region.

While it is unlikely that Vietnam, whose weapons systems are largely Russian-made, would import significant quantities of U.S. arms for the moment, the paper said, lifting the embargo draws Hanoi into a “U.S.-dominated regional security system.”












What Obama is doing on his historic Asia trip

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The president met with his counterpart in Hanoi and found time to sample some traditional Vietnamese food.
Vietnam hopes trade deal will tip balance towards the United States

The paper also implied that there was some hypocrisy in the move to cozy up to Communist Vietnam. “When the U.S. has an urgent need to contain China in the South China Sea, the standards of its so-called human rights can be relaxed,” it wrote.

Speaking in Ho Chi Minh City after Obama arrived there Tuesday, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said the relaxation of the arms embargo was not about China but about promoting a “rules-based order” in the fastest-growing marketplace in the world.

“If you want to point to the possibility of tinder box and possibly igniting something, I would caution China, as President Obama and others have, to not unilaterally move to reclamation activities and the militarization of the islands and areas that are part of the claims being contested today,” he told reporters in the former South Vietnamese capital.

“We don’t take a position on those claims. China should note that. We are not saying China is wrong in the claims. We are simply saying, ‘Resolve it peacefully; resolve it in the rules-based order.’”

Relaxing an “out of the ordinary” arms embargo was neither out of order nor inflammatory, Kerry insisted. “I hope China will read this correctly.”

Experts in China said they expected that U.S. warships would sooner or later be granted access to Cam Ranh Bay, a deep-water port that served as the key U.S. naval base during the Vietnam War.

Shi Yinhong, a professor in international relations at Renmin University of China, said Beijing would not respond in a tit-for-tat way but would continue to build its military power in the South China Sea, while exerting pressure on Hanoi not to draw too close to Washington.

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“China will try to cozy up to Vietnam but at the same time put pressure on it,” he said.

On social media, there were some angry reactions. “It looks like Vietnam is going to be America’s new puppet,” one user wrote. “Vietnam needs to give serious consideration to inviting the wolf into the house.”

“The U.S. is walking an arms race path,” wrote another, arguing this was good news as Beijing had deeper pockets. “China can wait until the enemy is exhausted.”



David Nakamura in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Liu Liu om Beijing contributed to this report.



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https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...5a098f-f0d3-4754-aab0-021f98bbe46b_story.html

 

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/0...-drone-on-contested-island.html?cmpid=prn_msn


New satellite imagery obtained by Fox News shows that China, for the first time, has deployed a drone with stealth technology to a contested island in the South China Sea, in another sign of escalating tensions in the region.

The new development comes as President Obama visits Japan. He lifted an arms embargo against Vietnam while visiting Hanoi earlier this week, drawing criticism from the Chinese government about stoking tensions in the region.

The newly obtained satellite images from ImageSat International (ISI) show a Chinese Harbin BZK-005 long range reconnaissance drone on Woody Island in the South China Sea.

The drone can remain airborne for up to 40 hours.

The Chinese drone did not appear armed in the satellite image taken last month. For the time being, the BZK-005 does not have the capability to fire missiles, unlike other drones in China’s inventory.

Other satellite images show some of the recently deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island transferred from one cluster on the northern part of the island to other locations in a move most likely to make them more difficult to destroy in a potential air strike.

In February, Fox News first reported the deployment of the missiles to Woody Island as President Obama hosted leaders from 10 Southeast Asian nations in Palm Springs, California.

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The Chinese HQ-9 is similar in design to the Russian S-300 missile system according to U.S. defense officials and has a range of 125 miles.

Asked about the deployment of the Chinese drone to the island, a senior Pentagon official said he could not comment on intelligence matters.

When asked about the increasing drone threat by China in the South China Sea at a press briefing Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook did not address the issue directly, but acknowledged the Pentagon had “concerns” about China’s behavior in the region along with other countries.

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(Fox News)

“You've heard us talk at length [about] our concerns about militarization in the South China Sea, not just by China,” said Cook. "There are concerns about what's happening.”

The Chinese first built a runway on Woody Island in the 1990s. Located in the Paracel chain of islands in the South China Sea, Woody Island is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam in addition to China.

Separately, China has constructed 3,200 acres of artificial islands atop former rocks and reefs farther south in the Spratly Islands according to a recent Pentagon report to Congress.

Over $5 trillion in cargo and natural resources pass through the South China Sea each year.

The LA Times recently reported that China has sold its armed drone, the CH-4, to Nigeria, Pakistan and Iraq, raising concerns about the proliferation of this type of technology. In December, Iraq claimed to have successfully used a CH-4 against ISIS.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Navy sailed a guided-missile destroyer near Fiery Cross Reef, one of China’s man-made islands in the South China Sea.

The “freedom of navigation” operation as the Pentagon calls them, took the U.S. Navy warship within 12 nautical miles of the Chinese island, sending a message to China that the United States does not recognize China’s territory.

In response, China launched fighter jets. Early this year, China tested commercial airliners on a new runway on Fiery Cross Reef. Defense officials tell Fox News, that China has sent fighter jets and other military equipment there recently.

A week after the U.S. destroyer sailed near Fiery Cross Reef, two Chinese J-11 fighter jets buzzed a Navy EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft flying 50 miles east of Hainan Island where a large Chinese submarine base is located.

The Pentagon called China’s action “unsafe” and claimed the Navy EP-3 was flying in international airspace.

Chinese officials were quoted Thursday as saying China is ready to deploy nuclear-armed submarines in the Pacific, as a result of the United States moving more weapons to the region.

China has said previous freedom of navigation operations by the Navy “violated Chinese law” and called the actions “provocative.” A Chinese military spokesman vowed “dangerous consequences” if similar operations from the American warships continue in the future.

When China’s President Xi visited the White House in September, he vowed not to militarize the South China Sea.

China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, reiterated that pledge when Secretary of State John F. Kerry visited Beijing in February, but said some “self-defense” weapons were necessary to protect the Chinese islands.

Last month, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter visited the Philippines, where U.S. military forces have returned for the first time since the Subic Bay naval base was closed in 1992.

After Carter’s visit, a flight of U.S. Air Force A-10 attack planes flew near Scarborough Shoal, located only 200 miles from Manila, where U.S. defense officials have seen Chinese ships surveying the area for another potential dredging operation.

 

US says Chinese warship seized Navy underwater drone

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Chinese warship seized a U.S. Navy unmanned underwater glider that was collecting unclassified scientific data in the South China Sea, and the U.S. is demanding its return, the Pentagon said Friday.
Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the U.S. has issued a formal diplomatic complaint over Thursday's incident, but he was not aware of any response yet. He said this may be the first time in recent history that China has taken a U.S. naval vessel. There have been periodic incidents over the years between U.S. and Chinese military ships and aircraft.

https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAlEdKq?m=en-us

 

Sources: Japan plans to send largest warship to S. China Sea



Japan plans to dispatch its largest warship on a three-month tour through the South China Sea beginning in May, three sources said, in its biggest show of naval force in the region since World War Two.

China claims almost all the disputed waters and its growing military presence has fuelled concern in Japan and the West, with the United States holding regular air and naval patrols to ensure freedom of navigation.

The Izumo helicopter carrier, commissioned only two years ago, will make stops in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka before joining the Malabar joint naval exercise with Indian and U.S. naval vessels in the Indian Ocean in July.

It will return to Japan in August, the sources said.

"The aim is to test the capability of the Izumo by sending it out on an extended mission," said one of the sources who have knowledge of the plan. "It will train with the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea," he added, asking not to be identified because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

A spokesman for Japan's Maritime Self Defence Force declined to comment.
http://in.reuters.com/article/japan...KBN16K119?utm_source=34553&utm_medium=partner

 

World War III nightmare scenario brewing in the East China Sea

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...ario-brewing-in-the-east-china-sea/ar-BBzlRZu

OKINAWA-While the world watches mounting military tensions in the South China Sea, another, more ominous situation is brewing in the East China Sea that could be the trigger point for a major war between the superpowers. At the heart of tensions are eight uninhabited islands controlled by Japan that are close to important shipping lanes, rich fishing grounds and potential oil and gas reserves. China contests Japan's claims and is escalating its military activity in Japan airspace. In response, Japan has been doubling its F-15 jet intercepts.
The situation increases the risk of an accidental confrontation — and could draw other countries, like the United States, into a conflict. It's a topic President Trump will likely bring up with Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago estate this week.
From the departure lounge at Naha International Airport on the Japanese island of Okinawa, passengers can easily see what's going on. Between the regular comings and goings of commercial airliners, first one, then two, then two more F-15 fighter jets streak down the runway that Japanese Air Self Defense Forces (JASDF) share with Naha's regular airline traffic. Rising rapidly from the tarmac, the quartet of combat aircraft heads out to sea to intercept yet another Chinese military aircraft — usually other fighter jets, sometimes a bomber or reconnaissance plane — flying into or close to Japanese airspace.
Such airborne intercepts are on the rise over the East China Sea, with Japan now averaging roughly two intercepts of Chinese aircraft per day since April of last year, nearly twice as many as in the 12 months prior. In response to the uptick in Chinese military activity in airspace Japan considers its responsibility, JASDF has doubled the number of fighter aircraft at its Naha Air Base, adding a second squadron of F-15Js — the Japanese version of the U.S.-made F-15 fighter jet — in January of last year.
The increased intrusion of Chinese military air traffic into airspace protected by the JASDF, along with the uptick in aerial intercepts, heightens the risk of an accident or misunderstanding between the two militaries — a situation that could rapidly escalate, given the already heightened military tensions in the region. Such an incident, intentional or not, could quickly spiral, potentially drawing U.S. forces in the region into the fray.

Rising tensions
"They've routinized their intrusions into our territorial sea space," says Eisuke Tanabe, a senior policy coordinator in the joint staff councilor's office at the Japanese Ministry of Defense, noting that incursions by Chinese surface ships into waters claimed by Japan are increasing alongside airborne incursions by Chinese fighter jets. "We send our fighters, and that makes the situation possibly very dangerous, when fighters and fighters come close."

From April to December of last year, Japanese fighter jets scrambled to intercept Chinese aircraft 644 times (Japan's fiscal year runs April 1 to March 31 of the following year). While Japan has not yet released total figures for fiscal 2016, Ministry of Defense officials briefing CNBC on the matter maintain that the tempo of airborne intercepts continues to increase, as it has every year since 2008.

JASDF forces haven't intercepted this many aircraft since the busiest days of the Cold War, when aircraft form the Soviet Union were active in the region.

Today tensions in the region are heightened by new catalysts, primarily overlapping territorial claims in the East and South China seas, the lingering threat of military action on the Korean Peninsula, and an increasingly capable Chinese military that seeks to secure its near-abroad rivals through a mix of air and sea power. Neighboring U.S. allies, like South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, are forced to look on nervously as China continues to test and improve its capabilities in the western Pacific Ocean and in the seas abutting China to its south and east.

A political hot button
On Okinawa — home to several major U.S. military installations as well as a meaningful contingent of Japan's Self Defense Forces — one particular sticking point serves as a regular reminder to Tokyo of just how tense Japan/China military relations have become: the Senkaku Islands.

The Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyu Islands to China), located some 225 nautical miles west of the main island of Okinawa and just 90 miles north of the Japanese island of Ishigaki, are claimed by both countries, creating an ambiguous security situation as both nations' militaries attempt to administer the uninhabited land masses and their surrounding territorial waters and airspace. Key to the dispute are both the rich fishing waters around the Senkakus and reports of potential oil and gas reserves in the seabed of the surrounding East China Sea. Sovereignty over the islands for either China or Japan (or Taiwan, which also claims the islands) would bolster any future claims to those energy reserves.

In recent years, the Senkakus have become a political hot button for both nations, stirring nationalism on both sides while driving a cautious approach by a Japanese government eager to avoid open confrontation with China. Following an incident near the Senkakus in September of 2010, when a Chinese fishing trawler deliberately rammed a Japanese Coast Guard ship, Japan claims it has taken a soft approach, urging Japanese fishermen to steer clear of the islands even as Chinese ships continue to ply the waters around the Senkakus.

© Provided by CNBCFlexing military muscle

China has openly said it aims to secure access to the Western Pacific beyond what's known as the "first island chain" — the string of islands stretching from the Japanese archipelago to Taiwan to the Philippines and across the southern fringe of the South China Sea, all the way to the Malay Peninsula. Ultimately, China aims to extend its military reach into the South China Sea and Western Pacific in such a way that it can effectively control who can — and cannot — enter those regions, analysts say.

But increased Chinese military activity in the East China Sea could prove to be the by-product of more specific aims.

"Our observation is that China is trying to develop the capabilities of their various aircraft in the Western Pacific Ocean," Yurie Mitsui, deputy director of the Strategic Intelligence Analysis Office within the Japanese Ministry of Defense, says. Because the increase in both surface ships around the Senkakus and airborne missions in the region require long-term planning and preparation, intelligence analysts have no choice but to read the uptick in activity as deliberate policy, she says.

"'First island chain' is a term created by the U.S." Mitsui says, and while she agrees with the idea that China is looking to extend its military capability deeper into the Western Pacific beyond U.S. allies like Japan and the Philippines, there's another, more fundamental issue at play for China. "When we analyze China's activities in the Western Pacific Ocean, we always think of Taiwan," she says.

It's a troubling addendum, suggesting that while territorial disputes and Chinese military activity in the East China Sea often take a backseat to more provocative island-building and military exercises in the South China Sea, the issues underpinning Chinese military activities along its eastern coastline are in some sense more volatile. China considers democratic Taiwan a breakaway province and has vowed to bring it back under mainland Chinese rule. Doing so isn't just a matter of geopolitical strategy or economic necessity, but a matter of nationalistic pride for many Chinese citizens and the ruling communist party.

The Taiwan card
As the Trump administration reportedly crafts a major new military arms package for Taiwan to help the island deter a rising Chinese military, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian told a press briefing last week that "it is futile to use weapons to refuse unification, and is doomed to have no way out."

President Trump will host Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago estate April 6–7, and security issues concerning North Korea and South China Sea will undoubtedly fill out the top of the agenda. Whether or not Taiwan or issues related to the East China Sea come up will be telling for those in Japan watching closely for clues as to how the new administration's relationship with China is likely to play out.

With the Trump administration still trying to find its feet after a shaky first two months in office, China could look to press a perceived advantage in the Western Pacific, says Dr. Akio Takahara, an expert on Chinese politics and professor in the graduate school of law and politics at the University of Tokyo.

"The Chinese are always looking at what the Americans do," he says. "So when the Americans aren't doing well, they think they are doing very well."

— By Clay Dillow, special to CNBC.com