China has for the first time landed strategic bombers on an island in the disputed South China Sea (SCS), drawing sharp reaction from the United States which said that the move will “raise tensions and destabilise the region.”
China’s air force said that its fighter jets, including an H-6K bomber, had recently conducted take-off and landing training on an island reef in the resource-rich SCS.
The training had elevated the air force’s abilities of “reaching its full territory, assaulting in full time and space, and striking in full scope”, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post quoted the People’s Liberation Air Force (PLAF) as saying.
Enhancing real combat ability: expert
Wang Minliang, a military expert, was quoted as saying that the bombers’ take-off and landing training was “beneficial to enhance the real combat ability against all kinds of security threats in the sea.”
People’s Daily , the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, on Friday posted a video on its Twitter account featuring a series of the H-6K’s training programmes, including take-off, landing and flying.
US sees it as continued militarisation
A spokesman at the Pentagon, Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Logan, called the exercise an act of “China’s continued militarisation of disputed features in the South China Sea,” the Post report said.
Bonnie Glaser, a China security expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the location of the H-6K landing was believed to be Woody Island — Yongxing island in Chinese — on which China’s Sansha city government is located.
China had established Sansha City, a prefecture-level city of Hainan Province, in 2012 to administer the SCS islands identified by China as Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha island groups and their surrounding waters.
“I believe this is the first time a bomber has landed in the South China Sea. No doubt the H-6K will soon land on an island in Spratly [Islands] since hangers there are built to accommodate bombers,” the Post quoted Ms. Glaser as saying.
Embroiled in a littoral dispute
In early May, the US said that it was prepared to take measures against militarisation of the SCS, after Beijing reportedly installed new missiles on outposts in the Spratly Islands — known in China as the Nansha Islands — that are also claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines.
China claims almost all of the SCS but Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims.
The US is periodically deploying its naval ships and fighter planes to assert freedom of navigation.
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