Beijing places jamming equipment in Spratlys — report says

According to the U.S. intelligence source of the news outlet, the new jamming equipment was installed within the past 90 days on Fiery Cross Reef and Mischief Reef. (Photo: Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative)

China installed military jamming equipment on two of its outposts in the Spratly Islands situated in the South China Sea, an international newspaper reported.

The Wall Street Journal report said that the equipment which has been placed in the region are capable of jamming communications and radar systems. This move, the report said, fortifies China’s ability to insist its extensive territorial claims and hinder operations of the United States (U.S.).

According to the U.S. intelligence source of the news outlet, the new jamming equipment was installed within the past 90 days on Fiery Cross Reef and Mischief Reef.

“While China has maintained that the construction of the islands is to ensure safety at sea, navigation assistance, search and rescue, fisheries protection and other nonmilitary functions, electronic-jamming equipment is only for military use,” the U.S. Defense Department official told The Wall Street Journal.

While Beijing maintained that its island-building is for defensive purposes only, this move has spurred fears as the outposts could be used to impose territorial claims that overlap with those of Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

The report said that three of its outposts in the island—Fiery Cross Reef, Mischief Reef, and Subi Reef—currently feature 10,000-foot runways, hangars for fighter planes, ammunition bunkers, barracks, and deep-water piers for ships.

Pentagon is seriously concerned with China’s ability to quickly transfer military assets to the outposts because it could enable the Chinese to control crucial trade ways, exclude other claimants from areas, and meddle with the U.S. military’s plans to defend Taiwan.

“China has built a massive infrastructure specifically—and solely—to support advanced military capabilities that can deploy to the bases on short notice,” Admiral Harry Harris was quoted as saying in the report.

This information comes as the Chinese military conducts its largest military exercise yet in the South China Sea, according to the U.S. officials.

The Wall Street Journal was provided by a photo taken in March 2018 by the commercial satellite company DigitalGlobe. The photo shows a suspected jammer system with its antenna extended on Mischief Reef.

Harris, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, on February 14 said that China continues to put up military facilities and capabilities on seven outposts in the Spratly Islands despite asserting that Beijing does not intend to militarize the area.

He stressed that the facilities deployed in the islands were only short-range defensive system, but warned that these equipment could be used by Beijing for “clearly intended purposes at some point in the future.”

“These bases appear to be forward military outposts, built for the military, garrisoned by military forces, and designed to project Chinese military power and capability across the breadth of China’s disputed South China Sea claims,” Harris told the US House Armed Services Committee.