Beijing’s South China Sea military bases ‘are vulnerable to attack and will be of little use in a war’

China’s facilities in the disputed Spratly Islands have alarmed its rival claimants, but a military magazine says they have significant weaknesses

Article argues their size and location makes them hard to defend and their airstrips are too small to be effective

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China has also built airstrips and other military facilities on the artificial islands. Photo: AP

Published: 6:00am, 6 Dec 2020Updated: 6:00am, 6 Dec 2020

The artificial islands China has built in the South China Sea are vulnerable to attack and unlikely to contribute much to any combat mission, a Chinese military magazine has warned.

China has been transforming the reefs and atolls it occupies on the disputed Spratly Islands since 2015, turning them into artificial islands. It has also built airstrips and other military facilities and deployed equipment such as anti-aircraft guns and close-in weapons systems, according to the US think tank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

These moves heightened fears among rival South China Sea claimants such as Vietnam and the Philippines, which fear the military build-up could allow Beijing to attack warplanes or shoot down missiles from the facilities

But an article in the latest edition of Naval and Merchant Ships, a Beijing-based monthly magazine, highlighted the artificial islands’ weaknesses in four areas: their distance from the mainland, small size, the limited capacity of their airstrips and the multiple routes by which they could be attacked.

The magazine, published by the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, which builds ships for the Chinese navy, also warned that they had yet to achieve any significant offensive capabilities.

“These artificial islands have unique advantages in safeguarding Chinese sovereignty and maintaining a military presence in the deep ocean, but they have natural disadvantages in self-defence,” said the article.

Beijing’s South China Sea military bases ‘are vulnerable to attack and will be of little use in a war’

China’s facilities in the disputed Spratly Islands have alarmed its rival claimants, but a military magazine says they have significant weaknesses Article argues their size and location makes them hard to defend and their airstrips are too small to be effective

China’s facilities in the disputed Spratly Islands have alarmed its rival claimants, but a military magazine says they have significant weaknesses

Article argues their size and location makes them hard to defend and their airstrips are too small to be effective