A Chinese official lashed out at the U.S. on Friday, a day after the U.S. Navy released a video showing the extent of Beijing’s reef-building operations in the South China Sea.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that troops warned off the aircraft as it approached the islands on Wednesday, confirming a report from a CNN news team that was aboard the Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol plane.
“It must be pointed out that the reconnaissance conducted by the U.S. military aircraft poses a potential threat to the security of China’s maritime features,” Hong said. “We call on the United States to act in strict accordance with international law, and refrain from taking any risky or provocative action.”
The United States does not recognize China’s claims in the area.
“U.S. military planes operate in accordance with international law in disputed areas of the South China Sea, so the U.S. military has and will continue to operate consistent with the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea in the South China Sea,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Thursday.
The island-building operations prompted Sens. John McCain and Jack Reed, the two top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to request that China be disinvited from next year’s major Rim of the Pacific exercise, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The CNN reporters were allowed to observe and film the usually classified surveillance missions. It’s a sign that Pentagon officials want the world to know the United States is pushing back against China’s claims, which are opposed by other nations in the region and have turned the South China Sea into a potential international flash point.
Declassified video aired by CNN shows that China has made significant progress in expanding by about 2,000 acres and fortifying what used to be coral reefs in the contested Spratly Islands, hundreds of miles from its coastline. Among the features that can be seen are a runway capable of handling any Chinese military aircraft, early warning radar and a deep-water harbor capable of sheltering warships, which could also be seen steaming nearby.
“You see here the landing strip on the backside there, the taxiway that they’re building. This has come hundreds of meters in the past couple months,” one of the Navy crew members says in the video, later released by the Navy. “You’ve got facilities on concrete, manufacturing facilities to produce a lot of the structures they have on the island. They have dredgers active that will take land from the ocean and pile it up to build more land. There’s a whole lot going on to build this land up in order to make more area for structures.”
In May, Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Harry Harris referred to China’s project as the “great wall of sand.”
The Navy also released audio depicting warnings against the aircraft for flying into what China claims as its airspace. In several instances, voices claiming to represent the Chinese Navy tell the aircraft “please go away.”
Nations in the region also claim the islands, including the Philippines, which has a mutual defense treaty with the United States.
A new defense agreement with Japan signed last month commits Tokyo to extend its maritime and missile defense capabilities across the region in exchange for a U.S. commitment to defend its administration of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which also are claimed by China. U.S. officials also are working on a deal that would allow a rotational presence of U.S. troops in the Philippines for the first time in more than two decades.
