Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Steven Schwankert February 17, 2016

It is hard to say that China’s President Xi Jinping isn’t consistent. Since he took office in 2013, President Xi has actively and aggressively asserted Chinese territorial claims, especially maritime ones. And while China’s construction of airfields on disputed islands in the South China Sea—over U.S. and Southeast Asian nations’ objections—was a step in the wrong direction, and the United States sailing a guided-missile destroyer within 12 nautical miles of those islands poked China with a geopolitical stick, China’s latest move can only be viewed as escalation.

On Wednesday (Feb. 18), Taiwan’s defense ministry announced that it had first-hand confirmation that China had deployed surface-to-air missiles in the Paracel Islands, a South China Sea island chain southeast of Hainan Island, which is also claimed by Vietnam.

China claims most of the South China Sea as its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone, denoted by a “nine-dash line” that extends almost to the coasts of the Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Those nations, along with Taiwan, have competing claims for some of the islands within the sea, which is believed to hold significant energy and mineral deposits.

Aside from possible oil, gas and mineral finds, at issue is freedom of navigation for commercial and military shipping. About half of the world’s oil passes through those waters, supplying China’s rival Japan, along with China itself, and a huge amount of commercial goods.

“We will deploy necessary national defense facilities on the islands. It is an exercise of self-preservation and defense, a right granted by international law to sovereign states. It does not impede freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea that all countries are entitled to under international law,” China Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei said on Tuesday. Mr. Hong did not address the missile issue specifically.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

I use a motorized wheelchair and communication device because of my disability, cerebral palsy. Parishes were not prepared to accommodate my needs nor were they always willing to recognize my abilities.
Margaret Anne Mary MooreNovember 22, 2024
Nicole Scherzinger as ‘Norma Desmond’ and Hannah Yun Chamberlain as ‘Young Norma’ in “Sunset Blvd” on Broadway at the St. James Theatre (photo: Marc Brenner).
Age and its relationship to stardom is the animating subject of “Sunset Blvd,” “Tammy Faye” and “Death Becomes Her.”
Rob Weinert-KendtNovember 22, 2024
What separates “Bonhoeffer” from the myriad instructive Holocaust biographies and melodramas is its timing.
John AndersonNovember 22, 2024
“Wicked” arrives on a whirlwind of eager (and anxious) anticipation among fans of the musical.
John DoughertyNovember 22, 2024