Australia will not bow to Chinese pressure to halt surveillance flights over disputed islands in the South China Sea at the center of rival claims between China and some of its neighbors, Australian Minister of Defence Marise Payne said yesterday.
The Australian Defence Department on Tuesday said that one of its aircraft had flown “a routine maritime patrol” over the South China Sea from Nov. 25 to Dec. 4, just as the US Pacific Fleet Commander warned that a possible arms race could engulf the region.
China claims most of the South China Sea. Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines also claim parts of the sea.
Photo: Reuters
China is building seven man-made islands on reefs in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), including a 3km-long airstrip on one of the sites.
Such activity has fanned regional tension.
In October, a US guided missile destroyer sailed close to one of China’s artificial islands, drawing an angry rebuke from Beijing.
US defence officials have said that another US patrol this year is unlikely.
Payne said Canberra would not be deterred by warnings from Beijing, which again responded angrily to the Australian patrol, and described the flights as a routine part of Australia’s role in helping to maintain regional stability and security.
“We always navigate in a very constructive way in the region,” she told reporters in Adelaide.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week said that countries outside the region should not “deliberately complicate the issue.”
Chinese media has not been so restrained.
On Wednesday, influential tabloid the Global Times, published by the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily, implied there could be military retaliation if Australia persisted with the patrols.
“Australian military aircraft had better not regularly come to the South China Sea to add to the trouble, and especially not test China’s patience by getting close to China’s islands and reefs,” it said in an editorial.
“It really ought not to happen that one day, due to a freak combination of factors, coincidentally an aircraft was downed and it just happened to be Australian,” the paper said.
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