Hong Kong:
China's apparent construction of a third airstrip on
its man-made islands in the disputed South China Sea could fill a gap
in Beijing's anti-submarine defences, complicating operations for the US
Navy and its allies, Chinese and Western experts said.
While most attention has been on the power projection China would get
from its new islands in the Spratly archipelago, China could also use
them to hunt rival submarines in and beyond the strategic waterway, they
said.
Possessing three airstrips
more than 1,400 km (870 miles) from the Chinese mainland would enable
Beijing to extend the reach of Y-9 surveillance planes and Ka-28
helicopters that are being re-equipped to track submarines, the experts
added.
A Pentagon report in May noted China lacked a robust anti-submarine warfare capability off its coastline and in deep water.
Strengthened anti-submarine capabilities could also help China protect
the movements of its Jin-class submarines, capable of carrying
nuclear-armed ballistic missiles and which are at the core of China's
nuclear deterrence strategy, said Zhang Baohui, a mainland security
specialist at Hong Kong's Lingnan University.
"That would provide greater security for China's nuclear submarines to
survive ... and if necessary to execute their orders in wartime," Zhang
told Reuters.
"They would be safer than in open oceans where China cannot provide adequate support."
The artificial islands, built on seven reefs over the last two years,
will be high on the agenda when Chinese President Xi Jinping has talks
with President Barack Obama in Washington next week.
Washington has criticised the reclamation and construction.
China, increasingly confident about its military firepower, has
repeatedly stressed it has "indisputable sovereignty" over the entire
Spratlys, saying the islands would be used for civilian and undefined
military purposes.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday said "necessary" construction work would improve conditions on the islands.
TRIANGLE OF AIRSTRIPS
Satellite photographs show construction is almost finished on a 3,000-metre-long (10,000-foot) airstrip on Fiery Cross Reef.
Recent images showed Subi Reef would also have a 3,000-metre airstrip,
Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in
Washington, said on Monday.
Poling, citing images taken last week, said China also appeared to be doing preparatory work for an airstrip on Mischief Reef.
Together, the three islands form a rough triangle in the heart of the
Spratlys, where the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan
all have competing claims.
While a noisy and relatively shallow operating environment for
submarines, the South China Sea has several deep water channels giving
access to the Indian and Pacific oceans.
Asked if Washington was concerned the airstrips would enhance China's
anti-submarine capabilities, a Pentagon spokesman, Commander Bill Urban,
said the United States was monitoring events in the South China Sea.
In a speech on Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the
United States would "fly, sail, and operate wherever international law
allows".
"Turning an underwater rock into an airfield simply does not afford the
rights of sovereignty or permit restrictions on international air or
maritime transit," Carter told a U.S. Air Force conference.
One mainland-based naval analyst said China was trying to improve sonar
and other detection equipment carried aboard its Y-9 patrol planes and
Ka-28 helicopters.
China was also expected to put detection devices on the seabed around
the new islands, creating "an electronic gateway", he added.
NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
Zhang has previously said ballistic missile submarines are more
important for China's nuclear deterrent than other powers given
Beijing's policy, dating back to the 1960s, of only using nuclear
weapons if attacked with them first.
This means China's land-based weapons would be vulnerable to a first
strike if Beijing stuck to its "no first use" policy in a conflict.
Chinese media and international military blogs this year have shown
photographs of Jin-class submarines operating from a naval base on
Hainan Island off southern China.
It's unclear if they have been armed with long-range JL-2 nuclear ballistic missiles.
The Pentagon report said four Jin-class submarines were operational, with a fifth expected to be added.
"China will likely conduct its first (submarine) nuclear deterrence patrol sometime in 2015," the report said.
The importance of that deterrence means China is likely to eventually
impose an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over part of the South
China Sea, security experts say, mirroring its declaration of such a
zone over the East China Sea in late 2013.
In a return to Cold War-style cat-and-mouse operations undersea, rival
submarines were already trying to track each other, said Western and
Asian naval officers with experience of anti-submarine warfare.
They said the United States would be trying to identify and track
individual Chinese submarines, just as it stalked then-Soviet Union
missile submarines across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans during the
Cold War.
Japan's ultra-quiet diesel-electric submarines were also increasingly
active while, over time, Vietnam's emerging fleet of advanced
Russian-built Kilo-class submarines would be another headache for China.
"We're looking at them, and now increasingly they are looking at us,"
one retired Asian-based naval officer said of China's growing undersea
operations.
© Thomson Reuters 2015
