Beijing says media ignores other claimants’ weaponry in the waters
Beijing says media ignores other claimants’ weaponry in the waters
China has deployed fighter jets to the same contested island in the South China Sea to which it also has sent surface-to-air missiles, US officials said.
Citing two unnamed US officials, Fox News said US intelligence services had spotted Chinese Shenyang J-11 and Xian JH-7 warplanes on Woody Island in the disputed Paracel Islands chain over the past few days.
Navy Captain Darryn James, a spokesman for US Pacific Command, confirmed the report but noted that Chinese fighter jets have previously used the island.
Woody Island, which is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam, has had an operational airfield since the 1990s but it was upgraded last year to accommodate the J-11.
“We are still concerned that the Chinese continue to put advanced arms systems on this disputed territory,” Mr James said Tuesday.
Asked about the jets at a regular briefing Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying neither confirmed nor denied their existence.
Ms Hua said only that China’s activities in the Paracels all fell within the scope of its sovereign territory and were therefore “in accordance with the principles of heaven and earth, and beyond reproach”.
“While you’re paying attention to China, have you also paid attention to all the other coastal countries that have occupied China’s islands and reefs in the past decades and deployed radar and advanced weapons there ” she asked.
“I suggest to the media that, in your reports, you not selectively pump up or ignore things,” Ms Hua told a daily news briefing on Wednesday.
“Because when you pay attention to what China is deploying, do you also pay attention to other countries which have over the years, on Chinese islands they have occupied, deployed many radars and advanced weaponry I hope friends in the media can objectively, justly, rationally and calmly make their reports,” she said. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year.
The comments, which come as Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi visits the United States, follow remarks on Tuesday by Admiral Harry Harris, head of the US Pacific Command, that China was “clearly militarising” the South China Sea.
Admiral Harris said he believed China’s deployment of surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island, new radars on Cuarteron Reef in the Spratlys and its building of airstrips were “actions that are changing, in my opinion, the operational landscape in the South China Sea”.
