New photos show PRC’s modified reefs, rocks are highly developed military bases
Radio Free Asia
New images have emerged showing airfields and other structures on artificial features built by the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) in the South China Sea that United States military leaders said have been “fully militarized.”
Philippines-based photojournalist Ezra Acayan obtained access to flights near reefs and rocks the PRC has seized and turned into military bases with radar stations, airstrips and artillery installations.
His photos, taken in late October 2022 for Getty Images, show another dimension of the artificial features, which previously had been mostly seen via satellite images.
Adm. John C. Aquilino, Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in March 2022 that the PRC had fully militarized at least three artificial features — Mischief Reef, Subi Reef and Fiery Cross — in the Spratly archipelago over which Beijing claims “historical rights.”
The new photos provide extensive details of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) facilities on Mischief Reef, Gaven Reefs, Subi Reef, Cuarteron Reef, pictured, Fiery Cross Reef and Hughes Reef — six of the 15 Spratly features occupied by the PRC.
Fiery Cross Reef appears to be one of the most developed, with a fully operational airfield, hangars, other large buildings and radomes, which house radar equipment.
New garage-like structures spotted on Fiery Cross and Mischief and Subi reefs may shelter missile launchers, according to analysts.
“My guess is that the sea-facing garages are for angled cruise missile launchers,” Tom Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, wrote on Twitter.
Tyler Rogoway, editor of The War Zone defense news website, said the structures could “be used to house, service, and rapidly deploy” launchers used to fire surface-to-air, anti-ship or surface-to-surface missiles.
Shugart also noted details such as “a car driving around Fiery Cross and someone walking down a street.”
“It’s not crowds, but it’s also not nothing,” he wrote.
In early October 2022, Chinese state-controlled media reported that there is a growing population of more than 5,000 “officers and soldiers stationed” on Chinese-occupied features and reefs in the South China Sea.
One photo of Fiery Cross, pictured, shows a KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft on a runway.
The image “is compelling and confirms that the PLA is still regularly flying aerial patrols off the islands,” said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That has been ongoing since 2020.”
Rogoway said the KJ-500 and other intelligence-gathering and submarine-hunting aircraft “frequently operate from the airfield there.”
Radomes, gun turrets and weapons systems for detecting and destroying incoming missiles and aircraft are common installations on all the artificial features.
On Subi Reef, pictured, several objects, possibly vehicles or carts, were blocking the main runway.
“This is an unsafe act, hostile to anyone else flying in the area” as pilots may not see the blockade during an emergency landing, Shugart said. “This once again puts the lie to the idea these islands were built for the navigational safety of all. They’re military bases, period.”
The PRC and five other parties claim parts of the South China Sea, including the Chinese-controlled features, which, according to the c Convention on the Law of the Sea, are reefs and rocks rather than islands.
Under international law, sovereignty over reefs and rocks grants a nation much more limited rights to natural resources than sovereignty over islands.
Beijing has developed at least seven artificial features, creating 1,295 hectares of land since 2013, according to the AMTI.
Despite Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s previous pledge not to pursue militarization, critics say the artificial features greatly expand the PLA’s offensive capability and threaten other South China Sea countries.
IMAGES CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
