China Said to Turn Reef Into Airstrip in Disputed Water
By JANE PERLEZ

BEIJING — A major reclamation project by the Chinese government on a tiny reef 500 miles from the mainland would enable China to land military aircraft there, expanding its reach into the contested South China Sea, analysts have said.

The analysts’ report came as a group affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army hosted an international conference in Beijing on Friday and Saturday intended to showcase President Xi Jinping’s call for a new regional security architecture based on the concept of Asia for Asians, an idea that minimizes the role of the United States.

“Asian countries bear primary responsibility for the security of their region,” China’s vice foreign minister, Liu Zhenmin, said at the Xiangshan Forum held Friday and Saturday by the China Association for Military Science.

New satellite imagery reported by IHS Jane’s on Thursday showed construction of a new island about 9,850 feet long and 985 feet wide at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands. The new island would be capable of supporting a runway and apron, the security group said.

Dredgers were also creating a harbor that would be large enough to dock warships, Jane’s said in its report.

China has been expanding its footprint in the Spratly archipelago for much of this year by moving sand onto reefs and shoals and creating at least three new islands that could serve as bases for Chinese surveillance and as resupply stations for navy vessels, according to Jane’s.

But the report said the dredging operations at Fiery Cross were by far the largest, and were intended to coerce other claimant countries in the archipelago, which include Vietnam and the Philippines, to eventually relinquish their possessions.

In the Beijing forum’s keynote address, China’s defense minister, Gen. Chang Wanquan, who rarely speaks in public, said that China wanted countries to “transcend Cold War thinking,” a reference to the American alliances in the Asia-Pacific region that China contends are used as a containment strategy.

Mr. Chang’s speech did not entirely exclude the United States. In recognition of the recent accord between Mr. Xi and President Obama for increased consultation between the American and Chinese militaries, he said China wanted to strengthen procedures for coping with crises.

The participants included Western security experts and some defense attachés, including from the United States, but top officials from the Obama administration declined invitations to attend.

In an address to the forum, Gary Roughead, a retired admiral and former United States chief of naval operations, pointedly asked China to clarify its claims in the South China Sea, and to ensure that the claims were compatible with international laws allowing freedom of navigation.

China claims about 90 percent of the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest trading routes, based on a line drawn after World War II that covers waters south of China, around Malaysia, and north to the Philippines. Other countries do not recognize the U-shaped line, which encompasses the Spratlys and Fiery Cross Reef.

The plans for an airstrip at Fiery Cross Reef were most likely intended for China to land military aircraft that could monitor an air defense identification zone, known as an ADIZ, that China appears likely to create in the future, said Bonnie S. Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Countries establish such zones to identify, monitor and possibly take military action against aircraft entering the designated area.

“I think it is to allow China to establish an ADIZ,” said Ms. Glaser, who attended the Xiangshan Forum. “To have an ADIZ, they have to have the capability to monitor the airspace. They may need even more than one airstrip to do it.”

In November of last year, China unilaterally announced such a zone over a vast area of the East China Sea, including the airspace over islands that are at the center of a dispute with Japan.

Western officials have debated whether China would soon make a similar announcement concerning the South China Sea.

Most analysts agree that China is unlikely to do so in the immediate future. But they say China is making preparations — like expanding tiny reefs into islands that can support large buildings and surveillance equipment — for the time when its navy and air force have the capacity to enforce an air identification zone far afield from the mainland.

To try to stop China from continuing its land reclamation in the Spratlys, the Obama administration suggested earlier this year that all countries with claims in the South China Sea freeze their building on disputed islands.

China rejected the idea. The construction at Fiery Cross Reef was an example of Chinese defiance of the American freeze proposal, Ms. Glaser said.

The Spratlys comprise hundreds of reefs, rocks, sandbars and tiny atolls spread over 160,000 square miles, in an area that is closer to the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia than China.

Several governments have claims to islands in the Spratlys, and of those, Brunei and China are the only claimants without airstrips, said M. Taylor Fravel, associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who also attended the Beijing conference.

The new satellite images suggested, he said, that China’s airstrip on the expanded Fiery Cross Reef would be capable of taking more sophisticated aircraft than the airstrip on the Spratlys island occupied by the Philippines. That airstrip, he said, can only take propeller aircraft.

Jane’s said there was little doubt about the reason for the work at Fiery Cross. “Given its massive military advantage over other claimants in terms of quantity and quality of matériel, this facility appears purpose-built to coerce other claimants into relinquishing their claims and possessions,” the report said, “or at least provide China with a much stronger negotiating position if talks over the dispute were ever held.”

中國造島搶南海 美籲克制

美國軍方發言人21日表示，中國正在中國與周遭國家領土爭執日益激烈的南海填海，建造一個大到足夠容納機場的巨型島嶼。

五角大廈中校發言人普爾表示，中國致力在南沙群島利用礁盤建島，其中在永暑島(Fiery Cross Reef，原為永暑礁，越南與菲律賓另外各有其名稱)打造的規模最大，也是第一個能蓋機場的人工礁島。

普爾對媒體表示：「看來他們就是要在上面蓋機場。」

礁島東側挖了一個港口，看起來足夠油輪和海軍戰艦出入停駐。

美國要求中國停止造島工程，並且要求周邊其他國家也停止類似工事。普爾說：「我們促請中國停止填海建島，改以外交途徑鼓勵所有各造在這些活動上發揮自制。」

根據IHS Jane’s資訊集團的防衛刊物，過去三個月，中國利用一塊淹在水下的礁盤，在上面建造了一個三千公尺長、二百至三百公尺寬的島。IHS Jane’s從8月8日到11月14日的衛星照片捕捉了這項工程。

報導說，中國過去12到18個月在南沙群島一帶建島，「火熱十字」是第四個；其餘三個是赤瓜礁、華陽礁、南薰礁。

北京對幾乎整個南海主張其主權，台灣、汶萊、馬來西亞、菲律賓、越南也都主張主權，為了伸張主權，紛紛造礁島，占島嶼。

這些東南亞國家在相關群島上已有機場，北京後來居上，造了最大的礁島，加強支撐其主權主張。

報導說，北京的用意，似乎是要他國知難而退，以及如果必須談判，北京也有更強的籌碼。

美國已多次力促中國和其他國家以和平方式解決爭執，同時促請北京支持南海多邊「行為規範」的構想，以便杜絕海上對峙的可能。但北京不要集體協商，比較喜歡和各小鄰國個別雙邊談判；這些鄰國在貿易上依賴中國，中國在談判上較占優勢。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/world/asia/china-said-to-be-building-airstrip-capable-area-in-disputed-waters.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20141124/c24waters/zh-hant/

2014-11-22．聯合晚報．A5．國際．編譯彭淮棟