AN AMERICAN admiral slipped a startling admission into testimony submitted to the Senate last month. After almost five years of dredging and fortifying reefs in the disputed Spratly Islands, lying between the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam, “China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States,” reported the officer, Philip Davidson, who has been nominated by President Donald Trump to lead America’s armed forces in the Pacific.

Admiral Davidson described how once-obscure rocks controlled by China now bristle with radar arrays and electronic warfare kit and are studded with aeroplane hangars and bunkers. He said the only things lacking on them were “deployed forces”, and noted a contradiction between building these bases and an assurance given by President Xi Jinping in 2015 that China had no intention of militarising the South China Sea. Once occupied, said Admiral Davidson, China’s outposts would be able to challenge America’s presence in the region and “easily overwhelm” rival Asian claimants in those waters.

In early May leaked American intelligence added some fine detail to the admiral’s picture. CNBC, an American television channel, reported the apparent deployment of missiles on three Chinese-occupied features—Fiery Cross Reef, Mischief Reef and Subi Reef. It identified the weapons as YJ-12B anti-ship cruise missiles with a range of 295 nautical miles (545km), and HQ-9B surface-to-air missiles which could hit projectiles, planes and drones within 160 nautical miles. Asked about this, the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said the Trump administration was “well aware of China’s militarisation of the South China Sea” and promised “consequences”. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that “necessary national defence facilities” on reclaimed islands were within China’s rights and did not amount to militarisation.

Time for a rethink

Until the final years of Barack Obama’s presidency, many military officers and White House officials had dismissed China’s reclamation of disputed reefs and rocks as mostly an irritant. The new bases were sitting ducks, American planners sniffed, and could be taken out quickly in an actual conflict. They are still highly vulnerable, says Andrew Erickson of the US Naval War College. But China has no intention of starting a war with America, he says. Instead China wants the upper hand in peacetime, or in crises that fall in the grey zone between peace and war. It wants to make clear to smaller, less powerful neighbours that they will “pay a terrible price if they try to oppose China in the South China Sea”, says Mr Erickson.

China also wants to raise the costs of future American interventions—hence its show of strength last month which it described as the country’s biggest naval parade since the Communist Party came to power in 1949. The first such review in the South China Sea, it involved more than 75 fighter planes, helicopters and bombers as well as nearly 50 submarines and ships. “The task of building up the strength of the people’s navy has never been so urgent,” Mr Xi (pictured at the scene) told 10,000 or so participating troops.

The South China Sea is not yet lost, says Mr Erickson. America has to date deterred China from developing the Scarborough Shoal, a disputed reef off the Philippines, the fortification of which would be a “last piece of the puzzle”. Nor has the Trump era seen blatant Chinese harassment of American ships legally in the area.