The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is constructing a new counter-stealth radar system on a disputed reef in the South China Sea that would significantly expand its surveillance capabilities in the region, satellite imagery suggests.
Analysis by London-based think tank Chatham House suggests China is upgrading its outpost on Triton Island (Jhongjian Island, 中建島) on the southwest corner of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), building what might be a launching point for an anti-ship missile battery and sophisticated radar system.
“By constraining the US ability to operate stealth aircraft, and threaten stealth aircraft, these capabilities in the South China Sea send a powerful signal to US allies and partners in the region that the US advanced technologies may not be able to stand up to the PLA,” said Michael Dahm, a senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
Photo: AP
Similar counter-stealth radars, known as SIAR, or synthetic impulse and aperture radar, have been built to the south, on Subi Reef (渚碧礁) in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), and China’s Hainan Island, to the north.
The construction on Triton would close a gap in its coverage. “Triton Island is another brick in the wall,” Dahm said.
Triton, a reef of about 120 hectares, lies in the farthest southwest corner of the Paracels, an archipelago controlled by China since a violent conflict with Vietnam in 1974. It is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.
Any construction on Triton — which is 135 nautical miles (250km) east of Vietnam’s mainland, and 170 nautical miles south of China’s Hainan — is likely to be of concern to Hanoi.
The structures on Triton would “significantly diminish [Vietnam’s] capacity to operate undetected in the area,” the analysis said.
“Alongside existing radar on Triton which can detect sea-going vessels, Beijing now has the potential to track Vietnamese air movements and gain forewarning of Hanoi’s maneuvers in the area, including efforts to access oil and gas deposits,” it said.
The radar might also complicate attempts by the US, the UK and Australian navies to navigate in the surrounding waters, it added.
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
RSS