'We have lagged too far behind': China hits back at US calls to stop island project
State-run newspaper Global Times hit back on Monday to demands by Washington that China halt its reclamation projects in the disputed waters of South China Sea, urging the US to “stay out of it”.
“The US is obviously biased considering that the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam have already set up military facilities,” the quoted General Luo Yuan, a hawkish critic of the US, as saying.
The island, shown in a satellite image obtained by IHS, will be large enough to accommodate China’s first airstrip in the Spratly Islands when completed.
“The land reclamation at Fiery Cross is the fourth such project undertaken by China in the Spratly Islands in the last 12-18 months and by far the largest in scope,” the report said, referring to a reef known to China as Yongshu.
A harbour is also under construction to the east of the reef, which appears to have the capacity for tankers and naval warships.
The Spratly Islands are claimed by China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam and Brunei. All but Brunei have asserted their own claims by building structures on reefs and shoals.
US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Pool had called on Beijing to stop its land reclamation programmes and for other governments to restrain themselves from similar activities.
"Our island-building in the South China Sea is not too aggressive or too fast; but instead it has been too slow and we have lagged too far behind!" said the commander.
The commander said land reclamation was necessary because soldiers had been forced to patrol in sea water as their stations occupied most of the available space on reefs and were too confined.
Yang Yujun, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of National Defence, last month asserted that China had indisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and their adjacent waters.
