South China Sea air strips’ main role is ‘to defend Hainan nuclear submarine base’
The real reason for China’s construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea is to provide a ring of protection for its fleet of advanced nuclear submarines based on the southern tip of Hainan Island, experts say
China’s underwater military strategy in the South China Sea, which remained concealed for the past two decades, suddenly emerged after an international tribunal rejected most of Beijing’s territorial claims in the hotly contested waters.
On July 12 – the same day the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague announced that China’s claims over the resource-rich and strategically vital South China Sea region had no legal basis – a photograph of China’s most advanced nuclear-powered submarine was “leaked” and published on many mainland military websites.
The photograph, revealing the expanded type 094A “Jin-class” submarine, led to speculation that the vessel might be capable of delivering China’s new generation, intercontinental-range ballistic missile, the JL-3, whose estimated range of 12,000km would enabling it to reach the United States from the South China Sea.
“I believe the type 094A, which has been closely monitored by the US, was deliberately ‘leaked’ to warn the US,” Macau-based military observer Antony Wong Dong told the South China Morning Post.
On Monday Admiral Wu Shengli, of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, told visiting US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson in Beijing that China would not compromise its sovereignty and would press ahead with construction of facilities in the South China Sea.
Wu also warned that “the Chinese navy is fully prepared to cope with military provocation.”