The US Department of Defense on Thursday said that Chinese test launches of ballistic missiles in the South China Sea were threatening peace and security in the region.
Confirming reports that Beijing’s forces launched as many as four ballistic missiles during military exercises around the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), the Pentagon said that the move called into question the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) 2002 commitment to avoiding provocative activities.
China’s “actions, including missile tests, further destabilize the situation in the South China Sea,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
Photo: AP
“Such exercises also violate PRC commitments under the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea to avoid activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability,” it said.
Over the past decade China has built up military installations on several disputed reefs and outcroppings in the South China Sea to assert its sovereignty over much of the region against territorial claims by Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
The Pentagon said that the Chinese military’s military exercises near the Paracels, which began on Sunday and conclude today, were “the latest in a long string of PRC actions to assert unlawful maritime claims and disadvantage its Southeast Asian neighbors.”
It said that the US last month had urged China to reduce its “militarization and coercion” in the region.
Instead, “The PRC chose to escalate its exercise activities by firing ballistic missiles,” it said.
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