The US cannot block Chinese access to the man-made islands in the South China Sea as suggested by the secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson at Wednesday’s Senate confirmation hearing, Chinese experts said on Thursday. Any attempt to do so would only prompt China to step up military build up and even set up Air Defence Identification Zone in the disputed waters, they added. The former ExxonMobil CEO said that China’s “illegal” building of islands and equipping them with military assets was “akin to Russia’s taking Crimea” from Ukraine. “We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed,” he told the hearing. In response, Wu Xinbo, head of American Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University said “What’s been built has been built… It should be noted that rising American military pressure could be used to justify China’s military deployment.” Yuan Zheng, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of American Studies, said he did not think Tillerson would dares to implement what he suggested at the hearing. “I don’t think the US will stop China from accessing its own islands in the South China Sea,” Yuan said. “China is not Cuba, and the South China Sea is not the Caribbean. The South China Sea is not under the US sphere of influence, it’s China’s territorial waters.” China might set up an Air Defence Identification Zone if the US proceeded to try blocking China’s access to the islands, Yuan added. Wu said the US had few options other than continuing or intensifying its “freedom of navigation operations” with their warships in the waters, which are disputed by six countries, rather than to deny China’s access.
