(CNN) — China has deployed surface-to-air missiles on an island in the Paracel chain in the South China Sea, the Taiwan government and senior U.S. military officials told CNN.
A statement by Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it had first-hand intelligence that confirmed the existence of missile batteries in the region hotly disputed by China and its neighbors.
U.S. officials told CNN that commercial satellite imagery showed the deployment.
“The Taiwanese Defense Ministry has learned of China’s deployment of surface-to-air missiles on the Woody Island in the Paracel Islands. (Taiwan’s) military is closely monitoring further development of the situation,” the statement said.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, responding to questions at a press conference Wednesday, didn’t deny or confirm the deployment but said he thought it was an attempt by Western media to create news.
The deployment came as President Barack Obama called for the halt of the militarization of the South China Sea at the close of a meeting with Southeast Asian leaders in California.
Obama pressed for a “halt to reclamation, new construction and militarization” of Asia’s oceans, an indirect reference to China’s rapid construction in the South China Sea of airstrips and ports in the Spratly Islands that could have military uses.
A senior U.S. official told CNN that the decision to deploy while the summit was happening was a “further demonstration of China’s attempt to unilaterally change the status quo” in the South China Sea.
Japan expressed concern over the deployment Wednesday, with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga saying Beijing’s actions were unacceptable.
“It is a common concern of the international community that China tries to change the situation and increase tensions in the South China Sea by carrying out extensive and rapid land reclamation, building its base in the region and utilizing it for military purposes,” Suga said at a press conference.
“We have deep concerns over such actions and want to re-emphasize that Japan cannot accept it.”
Call for cooperation
The South China Sea is home to a string of messy territorial disputes, with China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam wrangling over the sovereignty of island chains and nearby waters.
Taiwan called for all parties to the dispute to cooperate.
“Regarding China’s military deployment in the region, the Taiwanese Defense calls on cooperation from all parties to safeguard the South China Sea’s peace and stability, and avoid any unilateral action that will escalate tension.”
Other countries, including Taiwan, have developed islands in the disputed waters, such as the construction of airstrips capable of handling military aircraft.
A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman told reporters at a regular briefing Wednesday that China’s developments in the South China Sea were peaceful, and he had no specific information on the surface-to-air missiles.
“I want to emphasize that Xisha Islands are Chinese territory,” said the spokesman, Hong Lei, using the Chinese name of the Paracel islands. “Our deployment of defense facilities in our own territory is appropriate and reasonable. It’s aimed at improving our national defense capabilities and has nothing to do with so-called militarization.”
Provocation?
Ashley Townshend, a visiting fellow at the Center for Asia-Pacific Cooperation and Governance at Shanghai’s Fudan University, said China had occupied the island since the 1950s but said missile deployment was clearly a “provocation.”
He said China briefly deployed fighter jets on the island last year.
“China’s presence is tacitly accepted. What’s new there is a steep increase in these missile deployments, which gives it more military significance,” he said.
“It should be looked at in the strategic perspective of China hardening its presence in the South China Sea.”
China’s “nine-dash line” — its claimed territorial waters that extend hundreds of miles to the south and east of its island province of Hainan — abut its neighbors’ claims and, in some cases, encroach upon them.
Tensions have ratcheted up as China has reclaimed more than 2,000 acres of land in a massive dredging operation in the Spratly Islands, turning sandbars into islands equipped with airfields, ports and lighthouses.
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