Subi Reef News

At first glance from above it looks like any clean and neatly planned small town, complete with sports grounds, neat roads and large civic buildings. But the town is on Subi reef in the Spratlys archipelago of the hotly contested South China Sea and, regional security experts believe, could soon be home to China's first troops based in the maritime heart of Southeast Asia. Private sector data analysis reviewed by Reuters shows Subi, some 1,200 km (750 miles) from China's coast, is now home to nearly 400 individual buildings – far more than other Chinese islands.

China has begun daily civilian charter flights to Woody Island in the disputed South China Sea after approved the airport there for civil operations, state news agency Xinhua said on Thursday. China claims almost all of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of maritime trade passes each year. The Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan have overlapping claims. The first flight took off on Wednesday from Haikou, the provincial capital of China's southern island province of Hainan, and will run every day with tickets costing 1,200 yuan ($172.77) one way, Xinhua said. Woody Island, in the Paracels which are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, is the seat of what China calls Sansha city that is its administrative centre for the South China Sea.

China has begun operating a lighthouse on one of its artificial islands in the South China Sea near where a U.S. warship sailed last year to challenge China's territorial claims. China claims most of the energy-rich waters of the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. But neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. China's transport ministry held a "completion ceremony", marking the start of operations of the 55-metre (180-ft) high lighthouse on Subi Reef, where construction began in October, state news agency Xinhua said late on Tuesday. The U.S.

A U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer sailed close to China's man-made islands in the disputed South China Sea on Tuesday, drawing an angry rebuke from Beijing, which said it warned and followed the American vessel. The patrol by the USS Lassen was the most significant U.S. challenge yet to the 12-nautical-mile territorial limits China asserts around the islands in the Spratly archipelago and could ratchet up tension in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. One U.S. defense official said the USS Lassen sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef.

Taiwan will increase its coast guard presence on a small island in the disputed South China Sea Spratlys, the coast guard chief said Wednesday, as rival China asserts its claims to the same chain. Taiwan has largely kept out of disputes between China and its neighbours in the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei all have overlapping claims. Rival claims to the island by Taiwan and China go back to before defeated Nationalists fled to Taiwan after losing the Chinese civil war with the Communists in 1949. China to this day considers self-ruled Taiwan a renegade province, to be united with the mainland by force if necessary.

When the U.S. navy sent a littoral combat ship on its first patrol of the disputed Spratly islands in the South China Sea during the past week, it was watching the skies as well. The USS Fort Worth, one of the most modern ships in the U.S. navy, dispatched a reconnaissance drone and a Seahawk helicopter to patrol the airspace, according to a little-noticed statement on the navy's website. While the navy didn't mention China's rapid land reclamation in the Spratlys, the ship's actions were a demonstration of U.S. capabilities in the event Beijing declares an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the area - a move experts and some U.S. military officials see as increasingly likely.

A Chinese warship stationed near a reclaimed reef in a disputed part of the South China Sea aimed a "powerful light" at a Philippine military plane on a maritime patrol, Philippine military sources said on Thursday. On Monday, the Philippines showed journalists surveillance pictures of China's rapid land reclamation around seven reefs in the Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea, which has alarmed G7 and Asian states. "An Air Force Fokker plane was challenged by a Chinese frigate near Subi Reef, aiming a powerful light as it flew over the disputed area," a Philippine air force official told Reuters, declining to be named because he was not allowed to talk to the press. "We consider that as a challenge, but our aircraft went on with its mission.

The Chinese troop and logistics ship, a Yuting class, No. 934, is armed with three heavy guns, built-in cranes, and a helipad, reports 'The Philippine Star'. The Chinese ship is anchored at the Chinese-occupied Subi Reef, close to Pag-asa Island, which is occupied by Filipino troops and civilians and is part of the municipality of Kalayaan in Palawan. “We are doing our best with what we have,” Wescom spokesman Lt. Col. Niel Estrella said of their surveillance and monitoring operations on the current security development in the Spratlys. Estrella said that monitoring operations yesterday were hampered by bad weather in the area. In nearby Union Reef…