China Plans Base in South China Sea to Launch Deep-Diving Drones

Further militarization under the guise of ‘science’:

 

illustration only

 

Just after the likely next head of US Pacific Command told Congress China’s undersea warfare capability is one of the most pressing threats to the US, a new report says Beijing is establishing another base in the South China Sea for deploying manned and unmanned submersible vehicles.

The base would be located in Sanya, a city on the southern edge of China’s Hainan island, Asia Times reported Friday.

Largest Chinese Naval Drill “In 600 Years” Begins: Live-Fire Exercise In Taiwan Strait

Lets not forget this quote, which can also be found on the quotes page:

“The central committee believes, as long as we resolve the United States problem at one blow, our domestic problems will all be readily solved. Therefore, our military battle preparation appears to aim at Taiwan, but in fact is aimed at the United States, and the preparation is far beyond the scope of attacking aircraft carriers or satellites.”

– Chi Haotian, Minster of Defense and vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission

 

 

Last week, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) assembled all of its most advanced warships, aircraft, and nuclear submarines for a massive show of force in the South China Sea. We explained, how the 3-day war drill from April 10 through 13 would be held in the waters south of China’s Hainan Island.

Asia Times estimates some 10,000 People’s Liberation Army airmen, marines and sailors boarded 48 naval warships and 76 aircraft to show their loyalty and devotion to President Xi Jinping, who was greeted on a destroyer “by a resounding chorus of platitudes from soldiers.”

China’s Xi Says The Task Of Building A Strong Navy “Has Never Been More Urgent”

 

While most of the world remains fixated on Syria and Russia, China’s PLA Navy is in the midst of an unprecedented provocation in the South China Sea as a fleet of Chinese warships conducts its 3-day combat war drills in the waters south of Sanya, the southern tip of China’s Hainan Island.

With China’s presence in the waters off its southeastern coast growing increasingly threatening, President Xi Jinping declared on Thursday that the task of building a strong navy “has never been as urgent as present”. His remarks were part of a speech made during the country’s largest fleet review since 1949.

China Launches Massive Combat Drill In Hainan As War With Taiwan “Becomes More Probable”

 

Chinese President Xi Jinping promised a more transparent China on Tuesday, during a keynote speech at an economic forum in Boao, on the southern island of Hainan. Immediately after the conference, China’s PLA Navy began a 3-day combat war drill in waters to the south of Sanya, the southern tip of China’s Hainan Island, which is about 112-miles south from the economic forum.

The Hainan Maritime Safety Administration has demarcated an area in the South China Sea that will be closed to all civilian and commercial vessels from April 10 through 13. The military exercise was made public earlier this week on the government’s website.

Satellite Images Suggest China Is Arming Strategic South China Sea Base With Missiles

Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy recruits chant slogan during a parade to mark the end of a semester at a military base of the North Sea Fleet, in Qingdao, Shandong province December 5, 2013. (REUTERS/China Daily)

 

Satellite imagery of the People’s Liberation Army’s Yulin Naval Base on Hainan Island in the South China Sea shows the deployment of multiple missile launchers, which observers believe are for launching anti-ship ballistic missiles, reports Defense News.

“The direction in which the launchers are facing leads us to believe these are shore-to-ship missiles,” ImageSat International imagery analyst Amit Gur told reporters.

China Announces Military Drills in South China Sea After U.S. Navy Patrol

China will conduct military drills in the South China Sea on Thursday, less than a week after a U.S. Navy destroyer sailed near disputed islands claimed by Beijing in the region.

The Japan Times reported that China’s Maritime Safety Administration announced the planned day-long military exercises in a brief statement Wednesday. The country ordered non-military vessels to stay away from a designated section of the sea south of Hainan island and northwest of the disputed Paracel Islands.

China Outlines Plan for Military Buildup on Disputed Island

 

Website reveals future warship deployment to Philippines’ Scarborough Shoal

China’s plan for a new military buildup on a disputed island near the Philippines shows the future deployment of Chinese warships close to where U.S. naval forces will be stationed in the future.

Details of the militarization plan for Scarborough Shoal in the Spratly Islands were obtained by U.S. intelligence agencies over the last several months, according to defense officials.

China’s Front-Line Fishermen

TANMEN:  In the disputed waters of the South China Sea, fishermen are the wild card.

China is using its vast fishing fleet as the advance guard to press its expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, experts say. That is not only putting Beijing on a collision course with its Asian neighbors but also introducing a degree of unpredictability that raises the risk of periodic crises.

In the past few weeks, tensions have flared with Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam as Chinese fishermen, often backed up by coast guard vessels, have ventured far from their homeland and close to other nations’ coasts. These are just the latest conflicts in China’s long-running battle to expand its fishing grounds and simultaneously exert its maritime dominance.

China’s New Airstrip to Heighten Underwater Rivalry

Chinese dredging vessels purportedly seen in waters around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands (Reuters photo)

 

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.

China Deploys Ultra-Modern Destroyer to Base on S. China Sea Island

 

The destroyer, dubbed Yangsha, is likely to operate from the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) base at Yalong Bay on Hainan Island, reports Jane’s Defense Weekly.

The Type 052D features a universal vertical launch weapon system capable of firing anti-air, anti-surface, anti-submarine, and land attack missiles – a system not found on the preceding Type 052C.

PLA’s J-11 fighters likely to be deployed in South China Sea

The tension caused by territorial disputes in the South China Sea seems unlikely to ease in the near future, given the almost-completion of Chinese runways on reclaimed land and Beijing’s possible deployment of J-11 fighter jets there, according to a Hong Kong newspaper report.

If China goes ahead, the deployment in the Spratly islands, which China and Taiwan call Nansha, “would dramatically extend the reach of the nation’s military beyond its southernmost base at Sanya on Hainan island,” said the June 21 report published in the English-language South China Morning Post, citing unnamed analysts.

How Beijing may use South China Sea to create submarine haven

Beijing: For months, China’s visible construction of artificial islands and military facilities in the South China Sea has alarmed  US officials and many of China’s neighbours.

What is happening under the water is also worrisome,  several defence and security analysts say.

China has a growing fleet of nuclear submarines armed with ballistic missiles. The expansion of its claim on the South China Sea may be intended to create a deep-water sanctuary – known in military parlance as a “bastion” – where its submarine fleet could avoid detection.

China fast builds ‘counter-space’ capabilities to counter US satellites, Pentagon warns

“By the end of October 2014, China had launched 16 spacecraft, either domestically or via a commercial space launch provider. These spacecraft mostly expanded China’s SATCOM and ISR capabilities, while a few others tested new space technologies,” said the report detailing potential threats from China, which the US DoD released Friday.

Among the latest achievements by China the report mentions the first-ever launch of a satellite capable of sub-meter resolution imaging, the Chang’e-5 lunar mission and the completion of a new space launch facility on Hainan Island.

Vietnam Buys Deadly New Missiles Capable of Hitting China

 

Hanoi is the first Southeast Asian nation arming its submarines with land attack cruise missiles.

Vietnam is in the process of acquiring 50 anti-ship and land attack 3M-14E Klub supersonic cruise missiles for its burgeoning fleet of SSK Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines, Der Spiegel Online reports.

According to the article, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) recently updated data on its website, based on information obtained from the United Nations’ register of conventional arms, indicating that Russia has already delivered 28 missiles over the last two years to Hanoi, although the precise number remains unknown.

China Made Military History Three Times Last Week

Last week, a group of initially unidentified foreign troops disembarked in the Yemeni port city of Aden which is currently under siege by Iran-backed Rebels seeking to capture one of the last remaining major holdouts still controlled by fighters loyal to President Hadi. When the mystery soldiers arrived, the media made the somewhat logical assumption that a Saudi-led ground incursion had indeed begun. Surprisingly, the soldiers turned out to be Chinese and were in Yemen to ensure the safety of more than 200 civilians evacuating the city in an “unprecedented” move that at least according to one Chinese professor, makes China “look really good.”