New | China installing new radar on Spratly Islands that could greatly boost control of South China Sea: US think tank
Images show construction of facilities on Cuarteron Reef are nearly complete, says US think tank
Satellite images show China may be installing a high-frequency radar system in the Spratly Islands that could significantly boost its ability to control the disputed South China Sea, a US think tank said on Monday.
Military experts said the possible high-frequency radar system in the disputed area was capable of monitoring surface and air traffic from the Malacca Strait and other strategically important channels where US naval fleets usually appear and was aimed at collecting information about the US navy’s sea and air movements in the region.
China wants to monitor and study US naval activities in the South China Sea, which would make the Americans, who have sailed through the region for decades, “very uncomfortable”, said a Beijing-based naval expert, who requested anonymity.
The Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative at Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies said the images showed that facilities being built on Cuarteron Reef, which China calls Huayang, were nearly complete and that the artificial island now covered an area of about 21 hectares.
“Two probable radar towers have been built on the northern portion of the feature and a number of 20-metre masts have been erected across a large section of the southern portion,” the report said, adding that these could be a high-frequency radar installation.
The report, based on analysis of satellite images from January and February, said China already had significant radar coverage of the northern part of the South China Sea, given its mainland installations and in the Paracel Islands to the northwest of the Spratlys.