A fishing boat sails past the Meiji reef off the island province of Hainan in the West Philippine Sea in this photo taken on July 20. AP
MANILA, Philippines—China appointed military officers in its garrison in the West Philippine Sea, a Chinese government news agency said.
Senior Colonel Cai Xihong was named commander and Senior Colonel Liao Chaoyi as the political commissar of the newly-established military base in Sansha City, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said Thursday, as posted on China.org.cn.
China on Wednesday said it had established the city of Sansha on an island in the disputed Paracel chain, along with the military garrison.
Yang said in the report that the garrison will be responsible for “defense mobilization, militia reserves, the relationship between the garrison and local government as well as the city guard, support for the city’s disaster rescue and relief work, and direct militia and reserve troops in the city of Sansha.”
“Whether a military establishment has combat forces or not depends on its military tasks,” he was quoted as saying in response to queries on military deployment.
“Sansha military garrison and Xisha maritime garrison are separate military organs,” Yang said.
He added that the newly established Sansha military garrison is under Hainan Military Command, while the Xisha maritime garrison is under the Chinese navy’s Nanhai Fleet and the latter is responsible for maritime defense and military combat, the report said.
Sansha, which became a prefecture-level city in June, administers over 200 islets, sandbanks and reefs in Xisha (Paracels), Zhingsha (Middle sands) and Nansha (Spratlys Islands).
China’s neighbors reacted furiously to the move with Vietnam, which also claims the Paracel Islands, filing a formal protest and saying it “violates international law”.
The Philippines, which is involved in a dispute over another archipelago, the Spratly Islands, summoned the Chinese ambassador to lodge a complaint against the garrison announcement.
Sparsely populated Sansha is China’s smallest city in terms of population and land size. China reckons, however, that it’s the biggest when total area is factored in given the wide swathe of the West Philippine Sea it is meant to oversee.
State media have carried photos of a large domed and pillared building that serves as the city’s administrative center on the island of Yongxing, as well as images of a police station, a bank, a telecom office and residents relaxing outside humble wooden dwellings.
The three-floor building that state media said came into use on July 20 appears by far to be the biggest structure on the small island, which from photos appears largely covered in thick, green vegetation, including palm trees.
While Chinese media accounts of Yongxing’s population vary, it appears to be not much bigger than 1,000 people.
Defense ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said the new garrison was responsible for guarding the city and disaster relief, among other functions, according to China Daily.
However, he added that a separate maritime garrison under the Chinese navy was responsible for maritime defense and military combat, appearing to suggest that the Sansha garrison would not have such responsibilities.
China says it owns much of the West Philippine Sea, though Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia each claim portions of it.
The dispute has simmered for decades, though tensions have risen markedly recently as China has moved to more strongly assert its territorial claims.
The Association of Southeast Nations at a summit earlier this month failed for the first time in 45 years to issue a joint statement, as members were unable to agree how to refer to China’s behavior in the disputed waters.
China says it is acting within its rights, though its moves have raised alarm bells in the region and beyond.
Beijing is also involved in a separate dispute with Japan over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.
That row has also simmered for years, though tensions have increased substantially since a standoff between a Chinese fishing vessel and Japan’s coast guard in the resource-rich area nearly two years ago.