Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Amanda Gorely said that “Australian leaders want to reduce tension and achieve a peaceful resolution of the disputes in the South China Sea.”
She was referring to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop who called for a halt to further Chinese expansion in the South China Sea following discovery that China had placed surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island in the Paracel archipelago.
“We, of course, work very closely with all countries in the region, including the Philippines. And you know, we believe that the best way of resolving this situation is for countries to talk to each other and come up with a negotiated outcome to the issue,” Gorely said while being interviewed by Filipino reporters.
“South China Sea is a very important area for Australia. Most of our trade passes through those sea-lanes. The security of the Asia-Pacific region is absolutely essential to our own security,” Ambassador Gorely said.
China’s claim to most of the South China Sea is a persistent source of tension with five Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries that claim land and waters in the sea. It also conflicts with the United States’ notion of freedom of navigation, though it holds no position on the territorial disputes themselves.
To counter China’s dominance, the United States has been running active campaigns every quarter since October 2015 in which its naval vessels and aircraft deliberately pass by disputed areas that are not considered to provide legitimate maritime claims under international maritime laws. China has called these moves destabilizing, and it has used U.S. operations and coalition building in the area to justify deploying defensive arms to its South China Sea possessions.
The Philippines criticized the deployment, saying the latest Chinese action further provoked tensions in the region.
Apart from the surface-to-air missiles that were recently uncovered, there is also significant Chinese military activity on other parts of Woody Island. A key feature of the base is its runway, which gives China the ability to send and receive combat aircraft.
In November 2015, Chinese fighter jets were reportedly deployed to the base, and while the imagery shown above does not show these aircraft out in the open, previous reports have determined that 16 hangars at several locations along the runway are designed to host fighter aircraft like the Chinese J-11. (Associated Press)