CHINA has quietly built infrastructure in the Spratly and Paracel islands in the West Philippine Sea or South China Sea in a bid to equip its larger outposts for potential air and naval bases in the disputed waters, the latest satellite imagery from the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative showed Friday.
The group said the buildup happened during the entire year, covering 72 acres or 290,000 square meters, despite assurances to the contrary given by Chinese President Xi Jinping to President Rodrigo Duterte, who has played down reports of Beijing’s military build-up in the disputed waters.
Greg Poling, the transparency initiative’s director, said China had seized a “diplomatic opening” amid Duterte’s conciliatory stance toward Beijing over their territorial dispute.
“It’s gotten off the front pages, but we shouldn’t confuse that with a softening in China’s pursuit of its goals. They are continuing all the construction they want,” Poling was quoted in an Associated Press interview.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, however, downplayed the issue, saying the Chinese are “not occupying new areas.”
“We’ve never said tumigil lahat or walang gumagawa [everything has stopped and no one is building anything]. What we are saying is, they are not occupying areas that are not habited, meaning, they are not occupying new areas,” Cayetano told reporters at the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Christmas lunch for the media at Pasay City.
He explained Duterte’s strategy in the territorial dispute, saying: “The intention of the President is to lower the temperature and go back to the COC (Code of Conduct).”
“We might win international cases and have international support, but China will continue building more structures,” Cayetano said. “Have we lost land during the Duterte administration? No. But we have lost a lot of land during previous administrations.”
Curiously, a Chinese envoy to Manila reaffirmed Beijing’s support for the country under the Duterte administration, citing the improved ties between the two nations despite the lingering dispute over the West Philippine Sea.
Under the “strategic vision” and “concerted efforts” of Xi and Duterte, Tan Qingsheng, the Chinese Embassy political counsellor, said relations between the nations “have been building on the historic turnaround and ushering in a new era, or better known as another ‘Golden Era.’”
“Guided by such spirit, our two countries have taken concrete actions to advance our pragmatic cooperation in such priority areas as infrastructure, production capacity, investment, commerce, trade, agriculture and people-to-people exchange,” he added.
China, Tan said, had “every reason to synergize our development strategies” with the Philippines “and carry forward our win-win cooperation, so as to open up a broader and brighter vista” for the partnership.
The envoy delivered the speech late Thursday at a Christmas reception with local media, saying how Duterte met with Xi twice this year to thaw previously frosty ties between the Philippines and China under the previous administration of Benigno Aquino III.
They first met during the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in China in May, and again in November during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting hosted by Vietnam.
Satellite images released Dec. 14 in Washington showed Chinese workers completing much of the larger hangars, communications facilities, hardened shelters and large underground tunnels for ammunition and other storage in the Fiery Cross, Subi, and Mischief Reefs in the Spratlys, and North, Tree, and Triton Islands in the Paracels.
Smaller-scale work had continued in the Paracel Islands, including a new helipad and wind turbines on Tree Island and two large radar towers on Triton Island, Poling’s group added.
Woody Island, China’s military and administrative headquarters in the South China Sea, saw two first-time air deployments “that hint at things to come at the three Spratly Island air bases farther south,” the report said.
At the end of October, the Chinese military released images showing J-11B fighters at Woody Island for exercises, while on Nov. 15, AMTI spotted what appeared to be Y-8 transport planes, a type that can be configured for electronic surveillance.
Speaking to reporters upon his arrival from the Apec Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, Duterte said Xi gave him “specific answers” to his queries about China’s intentions in the disputed waters, assuring him that the increasing militarization in the South China Sea is “nothing.”
“[Xi] knows that if he goes to war, everything will blow up. He acknowledged that war cannot be promoted by anybody, but it would only mean destruction for all of us,” the President said last month.
Duterte said he believed Xi’s explanation, and was assured that China will not impede the freedom of navigation in the disputed waterway.
The Chairman’s statement of the ten-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc for its 31st Summit held in Manila took a soft stance towards China’s militarization of the disputed waters, only referring to the vague need for “non-militarization and self restraint.”
Last Nov. 13, China already agreed to start negotiations for a binding Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, 15 years after they signed the Declaration of Conduct, a non-biding edict, in 2002.
The Asean and China decided to adopt “in its entirety” the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties on the challenged waters adopted by the foreign ministers of Asean member countries and China last August.
China claims most of the oil-resource-rich South China Sea where a total of $5 trillion worth of trade passes through the disputed waters every year, citing its nine-dash line policy based on an ancient Chinese map.
But the Arbitral Tribunal has ruled in favor of the Philippines and declared China’s claim as excessive and illegal to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.