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.
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
Outside Havana, a combine belonging to a private Vietnamese company is harvesting rice, directly farming Cuban land — in a first — to help address acute food shortages in the country. The Cuban government has granted Agri VAM, a subsidiary of Vietnam’s Fujinuco Group, 1,000 hectares of arable land in Los Palacios, 118km west of the capital. Vietnam has advised Cuba on rice cultivation in the past, but this is the first time a private firm has done the farming itself. The government approved the move after a 52 percent plunge in overall agricultural production between 2018 and 2023, according to data
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and