China criticizes Philippines over South China Sea

Wu said the USA was employing double standards, asking why US patrols in the South China Sea should not also be considered militarization.

Last week, satellite photography company ImageSat International (ISI) published an image showing advanced surface-to-air missiles on the disputed Woody Island in the South China Sea.

Clearly, the administration led by President Xi Jinping has an ambition to enclose the South China Sea – without grounds under global law – and treat it like a Chinese “lake” in an attempt to eliminate USA influence in the area.

“The status quo is being destroyed”, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Le Hai Binh told reporters at a ministry press briefing, according to a February 25 report by VietnamNet.

“It is China’s legitimate right to deploy defence facilities within its own territory – no matter whether that deployment was in the past or at the present, no matter whet-her for a temporary or long-term basis, and no matter what kind of equipment has been depl-oyed”.

The United States has also conducted sea and air patrols near artificial islands China has built in the Spratlys, including by two B-52 strategic bombers in November.

Harris has said he was concerned about the possibility that China might declare an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the SCS.

“It’s very clear to me that those capabilities that are being developed are meant to limit our ability to move into the Pacific or to operate freely within the Pacific, and we call that anti-access, aerial-denial capabilities”, Dunford told the US House Appropriations Committee.

Mr Abbott said China should not be challenging freedom of navigation.

The US and its allies have expressed growing concern over the Asian giant’s military buildup, as well as its increasingly assertive posture in the South China Sea.

Also, China deployed a fourth-generation SAM system from the island in the South China Sea.

“Needless to say, military relations between China and the USA have some difficulties and obstacles”, he added.

Friday’s comments from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller followed a week of warnings by Adm. Harry Harris to Congress that the pace of China’s militarization on a string of man-made islands in the South China Sea is changing operations in the Pacific. Kishida had said a year ago that he was hoping to visit China in the spring to expand bilateral cooperation on defense matters.

Earlier Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a speech in Washington that THAAD’s powerful X-band radar can reach into China, and thus threatens Chinese national security.

The South China Sea is an important sea lane for importing crude oil and natural gas from Middle Eastern countries to Japan.

The U.S. had maintained there will be no talks to formally end the Korean War, unless North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons program. “When I started flying P-3s in the 1970s we had the Harpoon missile, and it’s the same one we have today”, he said.