China has won the
first round of its contest for control in the South China Sea by completing
construction of an archipelago of artificial islands, say senior Australian
sources.
And there is little that will stop China from winning the next round, too,
as an indecisive US Administration and allies including Australia struggle to
follow through on earlier promises to challenge unlawful Chinese claims with
"freedom of navigation" exercises, the sources say.
By 2017, military analysts expect China
will have equipped its new sand islands with ports, barracks, battlements,
artillery, air strips and long-range radar systems that will enable it to
project military and paramilitary power into the furthest and most hotly-contested
reaches of the South China Sea.
Those
facilities would give China the ability to obstruct other claimant countries
and potentially disrupt sea lanes that carry more than three-fifths of
Australia's merchandise trade, according to military analysts.
"This
is a huge strategic victory for China," said one official source.
"They've
won Round 1," said another. "It's hard to see how they will be
stopped from winning the next round too."
In May, US
Defence Secretary Ashton Carter demanded a "lasting halt to land
reclamation" and commissioned plans to conduct "fly throughs"
and "sail throughs" within 12 nautical miles of the artificial
islands.
The tough US
commitments were strongly supported by Defence Minister Kevin Andrews and
accompanied by high-profile US surveillance flights, including one involving a
CNN camera crew and another carrying the Commander of the US Pacific Fleet,
Admiral Scott Swift.
Fairfax
understands that those flights took place outside the 12 nautical mile zone,
contrary to some media reports at the time.
And military,
defence and other official sources have told Fairfax that the promised
"fly-throughs" and "sail-throughs" have not yet taken
place, adding that the two surveillance flights took place at a distance
greater than was widely reported at the time.
While the US
and its allies have struggled to follow talk with action, fleets of Chinese
dredges have completed reclamation work including the foundations for a second
3000-metre airstrip in the area, on Subi Reef, which will be capable of
landing the largest aircraft in the People's Liberation Army Air Force.
The
reclamation work has largely been completed in time for President Xi Jinping to
make a smooth state visit to Washington in about a fortnight's time, with the
number of Chinese dredges in use in the Spratly archipelago falling by about 90
per cent in recent weeks, according to sources with access to satellite
imagery.
Meanwhile,
US and Australian defence planners have run into problems as they struggle with
old maps and time-series aerial photographs to work out which of the Chinese
structures should be the target of freedom of navigation exercises.
Compounding
the confusion, strategists have realised that Western vessels and aircraft may
have for decades endorsed Chinese claims that have no basis in international
law, out of "politeness", thus raising the risks involved with a
sharp shift in behaviour now.
"Working
out which claims we recognise and how that should be communicated is not
easy," said a source.
In any case,
strategists concede that freedom of navigation exercises will not necessarily
hinder the militarisation of China's new sand islands.
Some
strategists believe China will have a largely unfettered run until at least
2017, when the land-locked Chinese client state of Laos cedes the chairmanship
of ASEAN and a new US administration settles into place.
Other
Australian and US officials, however, say that China has won at the tactical
level but lost the bigger strategic game, as nations throughout the region
respond by building closer security ties with each other and the US. http://www.smh.com.au/world/china-ready-to-launch-military-power-from-artificial-islands-in-south-china-sea-20150830-gjb1ol.html#ixzz3kLNdL41x
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