China’s new airstrip built over Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea (CSIS image)
Breaking Defense: China Has Built ‘Great Wall of SAMs’ In Pacific: US Adm. Davidson
From militarized atolls in the South China Sea to a growing Chinese navy looking increasingly aggressive, the head of the Indo-Pacom command lays out his needs and concerns.
HALIFAX: By turning reefs and atolls in the disputed South China Sea into fortified artificial islands, complete with anti-aircraft Surface-to-Air Missiles, China has transformed “what was a great wall of sand just three years ago [into] a great wall of SAMs,” the US commander in the Pacific said here today.
The militarization of the vital waterway for commercial shipping has been a major concern of Washington and its Asian neighbors for the past several years. But China’s increasingly aggressive challenges of American naval vessels operating in what the US and its allies consider international waters — including a near collision of two ships in September — raises the specter of a deadly accident that might escalate into war. And if a war breaks out, the island bases become a strategic southward extension of China’s land-based defense against US ships and planes, known in the trade as Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD).
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WNU Editor: This Chinese missile build-up has been ongoing for a long time .... China's missiles in the South China Sea put the United States and Australia in a difficult position (Anne Barker, ABC News Online).