A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, released on Monday, says that China might be in the process of installing a high-frequency radar system on the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea.
"Two probable radar towers have been built on the northern portion of the feature, and a number of 65-foot (20-meter) poles have been erected across a large section of the southern portion. These poles could be a high-frequency radar installation, which would significantly bolster China's ability to monitor surface and air traffic across the southern portion of the South China Sea," the report, released by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, said.
"Most people in this area recognize that the facilities that China has constructed are primarily for strategic reasons. They're for military purposes, rather than civilian. But that's how China will spin it," Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said in his opinion of the issue, reports The New York Times.
Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had recently reprimanded the media and requested it not to focus on China's "limited and necessary national defense facilities" in the South China Sea, as China was "providing goods and services to the international community," reports the Christian Science Monitor.
Washington would "press China to de-escalate and stop its militarization," of the South China Sea, said U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner according to Reuters.
