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By Preston Lim

This past May, the Chinese government shocked international observers by deploying anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles to its installations in the contested Spratly Island group. In so doing, the Chinese government has raised the stakes once again. The new missiles will allow the People’s Liberation Army to target vessels within a 295 nautical-mile radius.

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Chinese actions in the South China Sea are in contravention of international law. In a landmark ruling in 2016, an arbitral tribunal at The Hague held that the Chinese had no legal basis for laying claim to the area enclosed within the so-called “Nine-Dash Line,” a boundary which runs as far as 2,000 km from the Chinese coast. The Chinese government ignored The Hague’s ruling and since 2016 has succeeded in building and then militarizing artificial islands within that vast area.

Western officials met the Chinese deployment with a firm response at the Shangri-La Dialogue, held in Singapore in early June. U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis warned of “much larger consequences” should Beijing continue to ignore international law. Most strikingly, French and British defence officials announced that their navies would deploy a joint task force to the South China Sea. France has also called for co-ordinated European naval patrols.