China’s first landing of a plane on one of its new island runways in the South China Sea shows Beijing’s facilities in the disputed region are being completed on schedule and military flights will inevitably follow, foreign officials and analysts said.
China’s increasing military presence in the disputed sea could effectively lead to a Beijing-controlled air defense zone, they said, ratcheting up tensions with other claimants and with the US.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials on Saturday said that a test flight by a civilian plane landed on an artificial island built in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), the first time Beijing has used a runway in the area.
Vietnam launched a formal diplomatic protest while Philippines Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said Manila was planning to do the same.
Both nations have claims to the area that overlap with China and Taiwan.
“That’s the fear, that China will be able take control of the South China Sea and it will affect the freedom of navigation and freedom of overflight,” Jose said.
In Washington, US Department of State spokesman John Kirby on Monday said China’s landing of the plane “raises tensions and threatens regional stability.”
US Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized US President Barack Obama’s administration for delaying further “freedom of navigation” patrols within 12 nautical miles (22.2km) of the islands built by China.
McCain said that the lack of US action was allowing China to continue to “pursue its territorial ambitions” in the region.
He said the Obama administration was “either unable to manage the complexities of interagency national security decisionmaking or simply too risk averse to do what is necessary to safeguard the rules-based order in the Asia-Pacific.”
China has been building runways on the artificial islands for more than a year, and the plane’s landing was not a surprise.
The runway on Fiery Cross Reef (Yongshu Reef, 永暑礁) is 3km long and is one of three China was constructing on artificial islands built up from seven reefs and atolls in the Spratlys.
The runways would be long enough to handle long-range bombers and transport craft as well as China’s best jet fighters, giving them a presence deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia.
Chinese officials have repeatedly said that the new islands would be mostly for civilian use.
However, military landings on the islands were now “inevitable,” said Leszek Buszynski, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre in Canberra.
An air defense zone, while unlikely soon, was feasible and possible in future once China builds up its air strength, he said.
“The next step will be, once they’ve tested it with several flights, they will bring down some of their fighter air power — SU-27s and SU-33’s — and they will station them there permanently. That’s what they’re likely to do,” he said.
Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, said he expected tensions to worsen as China used its new facilities to project power deeper into the South China Sea.
MISINFORMATION: The generated content tends to adopt China’s official stance, such as ‘Taiwan is currently governed by the Chinese central government,’ the NSB said Five China-developed artificial intelligence (AI) language models exhibit cybersecurity risks and content biases, an inspection conducted by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The five AI tools are: DeepSeek, Doubao (豆包), Yiyan (文心一言), Tongyi (通義千問) and Yuanbao (騰訊元寶), the bureau said, advising people to remain vigilant to protect personal data privacy and corporate business secrets. The NSB said it, in accordance with the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法), has reviewed international cybersecurity reports and intelligence, and coordinated with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to conduct an inspection of China-made AI language
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
CHECKING BOUNDARIES: China wants to disrupt solidarity among democracies and test their red lines, but it is instead pushing nations to become more united, an expert said The US Department of State on Friday expressed deep concern over a Chinese public security agency’s investigation into Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) for “secession.” “China’s actions threaten free speech and erode norms that have underpinned the cross-strait ‘status quo’ for decades,” a US Department of State spokesperson said. The Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau late last month listed Shen as “wanted” and launched an investigation into alleged “secession-related” criminal activities, including his founding of the Kuma Academy, a civil defense organization that prepares people for an invasion by China. The spokesperson said that the US was “deeply concerned” about the bureau investigating Shen
‘TROUBLEMAKER’: Most countries believe that it is China — rather than Taiwan — that is undermining regional peace and stability with its coercive tactics, the president said China should restrain itself and refrain from being a troublemaker that sabotages peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. Lai made the remarks after China Coast Guard vessels sailed into disputed waters off the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan — following a remark Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made regarding Taiwan. Takaichi during a parliamentary session on Nov. 7 said that a “Taiwan contingency” involving a Chinese naval blockade could qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, and trigger Tokyo’s deployment of its military for defense. Asked about the escalating tensions
RSS