Head of Chinese delegation at Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore accuses US of being the real ‘source of militarisation’ in disputed waterway
China is well within its rights to station troops on islands it claims in the South China Sea, the head of the country’s military delegation at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore said on Saturday in response to criticism by US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis.
“Deploying troops and weapons on islands in the South China Sea is within China’s sovereign right to do and allowed by international law,” said He Lei, a lieutenant general with the People’s Liberation Army.
“All irresponsible remarks [on the subject] are an infringement of China’s domestic affairs.” he told a press conference just two hours after Mattis said in his speech at the event that Beijing had been “intimidating and coercing” its neighbours with its military activities in the disputed waterway.
He also likened the construction of military outposts in the South China Sea to the decision by late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping to send a PLA garrison to Hong Kong after the 1997 handover, in a show of the country’s sovereignty in the region.
He’s comments were the first at such a public and international event to acknowledge Beijing’s plans to base both troops and weapons on its natural and man-made islands in the Paracel and Spratly archipelagoes.
China had previously insisted that its developments on a string of islets, reefs and shoals – the territorial rights to which are still fiercely contested by several countries and regions – would only ever be used for defence purposes.
Despite He’s admission, he batted back Mattis’ accusations, saying that the “close-up reconnaissance” carried out by two US warships – which sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Paracel Islands last week – was the real “source of militarisation” in the region.
In a meeting with former President Barack Obama during a visit to the US in 2015, China’s President Xi Jinping denied the country had plans to establish military strongholds in the South China Sea.
