US will soon launch spy planes from Singapore over South China Sea

2015_1208_P-8A_Poseidon2
The P-8 conducts anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, and shipping interdiction, along with an electronic signals intelligence role.

Despite having no territorial claims to the waterway, Washington has fiercely contested Beijing’s construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea. To monitor the progress of those islands, the Pentagon has flown P-8 Poseidon surveillance planes out of the Philippines and Japan.

According to Pentagon officials speaking on condition of anonymity to Foreign Policy, those flights will soon be launched out a third country: Singapore. An agreement between Singapore’s defense minister, Ng Eng Hen and US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter will be signed on Monday.

“They will sign an enhanced defense cooperation agreement that will lay the framework for closer cooperation on a number of areas, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, countering piracy and transnational terrorism, and cyberdefense,” one official told Foreign Policy magazine.

The aircraft come equipped with radar sensors, and are also capable of anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, and electronic signals intelligence.

Beijing lays claim to most of the South China Sea, a highly contested region through which nearly US $5 trillion in trade passes annually. There are, however, overlapping claims from Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Singapore, among others.

The Singapore deal is only the latest sign of Washington’s aggressive stance in the region. In an effort to curb China’s growing influence, the US has pressured regional allies to protest the island reclamation projects, and has staged a number of joint-military exercises in the South China Sea.

In October, the Pentagon began conducting patrols within the 12-mile territorial limit of China’s artificial islands. US Admiral Harry B. Harris described the patrol as being emblematic of America’s preference for “peaceful resolutions.”

“By matching our words and our diplomacy with routine freedom of navigation operations, we’re making it clear that the United States continues to favor peaceful resolutions to ongoing disputes and that our military will continue to fly, sail and operate whenever and wherever international law allows,” he said, according to the Wall Street Journal. (PNA/Sputnik)

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