Sea row clouds China leader’s US visit

WASHINGTON – The continuing construction of airfields on disputed reefs in the South China Sea by China may strain a White House meeting between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, The Washington Post reported.

It said new satellite images, ahead of Xi’s Sept. 24 state visit to the US, show China taking new steps to lay down what appears to be a 1.4-mile military runway on Zamora (Subi) Reef and putting the finishing touches on a 2-mile airfield in Panganiban (Mischief) Reef in the Spratly islands chain. Subi was a once-submerged shoal that Beijing built up into an area suitable for a military base.

Although the US urged China to stop work in disputed territory and Beijing saying in August that it halted the reclamation, the satellite photos taken for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) show that the construction continues.  

“When the Chinese government said it had mainly finished the work, it clearly hadn’t,” said Michael Green, a senior vice president at CSIS and former senior director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.

China is claiming almost all of the South China Sea, including the West Philippine Sea, while its neighbors – Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan – have rival claims.

The Post said images of new construction by China comes as political criticism over Xi’s visit is mounting in the United States.

Several Republican presidential hopefuls have said the state dinner with Xi should be canceled because of disagreements over the South China Sea, human rights issues, cyberspace hacking and theft of intellectual property.

Senate Armed Services committee chairman John McCain said China’s construction of new airfields demonstrates that reclamation in the area has continued despite Beijing’s claims to the contrary. It also shows China’s clear intention to militarize the Spratly Islands.

Along with radars and surface-to-air missiles, the airfields give Beijing the capacity to enforce an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the South China Sea, McCain said in a statement.