Us Senate Armed Services Committee News

China will be able to project "substantial offensive military power" from artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea's disputed Spratly Islands within months, the director of U.S. national intelligence said. In a Feb. 23 letter to John McCain, chair of the U.S. "Based on the pace and scope of construction at these outposts, China will be able to deploy a range of offensive and defensive military capabilities and support increased PLAN and CCG presence beginning in 2016," Clapper said in the letter released this week, using acronyms for the Chinese navy and coastguard. "Once these facilities are completed by the end of 2016 or early 2017, China will have significant capacity to quickly project substantial offensive military power to the region," Clapper added.

Four more minesweepers and four more minesweeping helicopters are to be sent to the Persian Gulf, a move which will increase the number of mine countermeasure forces available to keep open the sea lanes around the Strait of Hormuz should Iran choose to mine that critical waterway. “We are moving four more minesweepers to the region, making eight,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations (CNO), told the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee during a Navy budget hearing.

Tensions surrounding the turnover of the Panama Canal from U.S. to Panamanian authority are running high. Last week, Hong Kong-based billionaire Li Ka-Shing said he had no intention of taking control of the Panama Canal, as suggested by some U.S. lawmakers. Li was responding for the first time personally to charges by U.S. Senate Majority leader Trent Lott (R-Miss) that his company, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., could put a strangle-hold on the strategic waterway. "I have no intention to control the Panama Canal," Li said. The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee is expected soon to discuss the right of a Hutchison subsidiary to run two container ports at the Atlantic and Pacific entrances of the canal.