Why the Chinese need the Spratlys and Paracels artificial island in the South China Sea

Why the Chinese need the Spratlys and Paracels

 artificial island in the South China Sea

By E. Stanley Ukeni

China’s ambitious land reclamation project on the Spratlys and the Paracels Island chain has continued to stoke tension between the Chinese government and its neighbors—and eroding the confidence of regional governments within the ASEAN Regional Forum. In fact speculations abound regarding what China intends to do with the massive artificial island it is constructing in the South China Sea.

Before I proceed, I deem it appropriate to point out that the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission has come out to state that the artificial island in the South China Sea is intended primarily for civilian and emergency use, and I for one have no reason to doubt this official assertion by China’s top national planning agency. I am only venturing with this strategic analysis to explore a potential extreme military scenario. Well, now that I’ve dispensed with the tact disclaimer, let me proceed with my hypothesis.

 It is obvious by now that China is not constructing a paradise island resort. The country’s officially declared main purpose for the artificial island—which is to support such civilian activities as maritime and rescue and scientific research, does not quite explain the need for the Chinese government to expend enormous financial and material resources to execute such a large scale construction project when a modestly smaller outpost can serve the declared purpose.

Although China has declared that its secondary use of the expansive artificial island includes advancing its newly upgraded military strategy of open seas protection, and offshore water defense. It is not likely that this declaration will reduce regional tension much. In fact the prospect of a militarization of the South China Seas is exactly the main reason that China’s neighbors are antsy.

However, China seems unfazed by the increasing agitation of its neighbors, as its land reclamation activities is still continuing at, at least, two of the seven land reclamation sites in the Spratlys Island chain—specifically at Mischief Reef and Subi Reef, according to a Washington-based think-tank, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. The Chinese on proceeding with the island construction project irrespective of what any other country thinks.

The United States has in recent months employed various diplomatic means in other to persuade China to abandon the South China Seas land reclamation project to no avail. The Chinese are continuing with the artificial island project despite the US government rejection of China’s claim to the Spratly and Paracels’ island chain. According to a statement by Senator John McCain, it would seem that US government have opted for a tact approach to how it is confronting China over its increasingly secretive island construction in the South China Sea. I suspect that the United States’ policy makers and military planners has done a cost/benefit analysis of the situation, and perhaps, concluded that the risk of an all-out military confrontation with China outweighs any potential gains from such antagonistic strategy.

In preparing to write this blog article, I started to ponder on why the Chinese government would insist on continuing with such a colossal project in the South China Sea amidst the contentious backlash from its ASEAN neighbors, some of whom are claiming parts of the island chains as their own. Then, in a moment of epiphany, the brilliance of what the Chinese are aiming to achieve with the artificial island dawned on me. Of course the theory that I’m about to advance is mere conjecture on my part, at this point. There is no definitive evidence to clearly substantiate the assertions here, at least for now.

Well, it is no secret that the Chinese Navy far lags behind the United States’ Navy in the key area of forward-force projection capabilities. It is equally an established fact that the People’s Liberation Army would like to leapfrog into parity with the US Navy as quickly as possible. Supporting this assertion is the policy document issued by the State Council—China’s cabinet body, which indicates that the country’s air force would shift its focus from territorial air defense to both offensive and defensive air defense. The same policy paper informs that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) intends to build a network of airspace defenses with enhanced military capability, which would provide an arch of air defense around its coastal regions, in the near future.



In other to achieve these lofty goals and objectives a country would need to have at its control the sort of naval assets that only the United States’ Navy possesses—chief among these assets would be the command of a sizable fleet of super aircraft carriers. The Chinese most certainly do not have these, at least not yet. This has to lead one to wonder how the naval force of Chinese Liberation Army hopes to match the US naval superiority in firepower—with its impressive aircraft carrier fleets of at least ten USS Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and another nine USS America-class flat-decked, aircraft-carrying, amphibious assault ships. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Navy currently has one Liaoning-class aircraft carrier, though it intends to float four super-carriers by 2020.  A lone carrier cannot conceivably serve the defense objects that the policy paper has outlined. 

It’s not that the Chinese ships builders and engineers cannot, or has not yet mastered the ability to, construct and float a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. It’s just that the time it would take the Chinese Navy to acquire enough of these super carriers to even near the current US naval fleet numbers makes the possibility of the Chinese Navy attaining parity with the US Navy unlikely any time soon. However, a forward located and sizable island—equipped to support all the functionalities of an aircraft carrier, quickly becomes an expedient and viable alternative to solving a strategic military deficiency, in the near-term.

I think that the Chinese defense establishment is aiming to leapfrog into parity with the US naval force projection capabilities with the expansive artificial island it is constructing in the South China Sea, and future land reclamation projects—in perhaps the East China Sea and the Indian Ocean. I think that a few more of these artificial islands in strategic areas, and China would only need maybe three or four aircraft carriers to achieve strategic parity with the US Navy. This is definitely achievable within the next decade.  

My rudimentary analysis suggests that, if the artificial island that the Chinese is constructing in the South China Sea is fully militarized, it would easily serve the functionality of at least two to three aircraft carriers. The expansive two thousand acres plus land area that the Chinese dredging and engineering companies have already reclaimed from the sea is more than sufficient forward operating military outpost to deploy and maintain both defensive and offensive advanced weaponry.

Think about it, the artificial island’s strategic location close to the center of the South China Sea means that it would be an ideal location for basing the ubiquitous Russian made S-400 Missile Defense System that the Chinese government acquired earlier this year. This highly sophisticated air defense system is capable of firing several types of missiles, and can simultaneously engage thirty-six independent targets within an impressive range of two hundred and forty-eight plus miles (400 km)—creating a multi-layered extensive perimeter defense zone.

If this advanced Missile Defense System—augmented with Chinese build HQ-9 and HongQi-10 advanced surface-to-air missile systems, were to be successfully deployed in the Spratlys, and, or the Paracels Island area, almost all conventional military threats that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are currently contending with in the Asia-Pacific theater of operation would conceivably be neutralized. Under this scenario, the US defense department would have to field even more sophisticated weaponry to keep its military outposts in Japan, South Korea and Guam both defensively and offensively viable. I’m fairly certain that the Chinese defense department is seriously contemplating, or may have already decided, to field these impressive air defense systems at the artificially constructed island when completed.

 Equally, recent satellite imagery of the man-made Spratlys and the Paracels Island land reclamation project shows that two, approximately one and half miles (3 KM) long, tarmac has been laid for an expansive airstrip complex. At least one of these lengthy runway strips is within an aviation safety range for the PLA’s Air force bombers like the H-6, the strategic transport aircrafts such as the Ilyushin II-76 and a range of military surveillance planes to effectively takeoff and land. This is understandably a worrisome development for China’s regional rivals.

An even more disturbing aspect of the airstrip complex construction is the prospect of the complex playing host to dozens of J-11 and J-16 advance fighter jets at any given time. At least one of the two airstrips on the man-made island is capable of supporting the fifth generation J-31 Stealth Fighter jets once they become operational.

If China’s PLA were to augment its deployment of advanced air force planes with an even more robust deployment of strategic short to medium range ballistic missiles at the artificial island in the Spratlys, it would indicate a potentially new phase in its militarization project. If this potentially provocative scenario were to occur, it might be an indicator that China might be moving toward the establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the South China Sea.

   

Although high-level US government functionaries have clearly indicated that the tension between the US military and the Chinese PLA over China’s sovereign claims to the Spratlys and Paracels Island chain will not lead to military conflict between the two superpowers, I am of the opinion that the United States will apply such diplomatic pressure on China over the issue in a bid to discourage China from venturing to construct additional artificial outposts in either the East China Sea or the Indian Ocean, and perhaps elsewhere.  

Authored by E. Stanley Ukeni, © 2015. All Rights Reserved.