The state-run Defense Times newspaper confirmed installation of Norinco CS/AR-1 55mm anti-frogman rocket launcher defence systems with the capability to discover, identify and attack enemy combat divers on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands (a disputed island) that is administered by China but also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.
The report did not state when the defense system was installed, but said it was part of a response that began in May 2014, when Vietnamese divers installed large numbers of fishing nets in the Paracel Islands. China has conducted extensive land reclamation work at Fiery Cross Reef, including building an airport, one of several Chinese-controlled features in the South China Sea where China has carried out such work.
While huge quantum touching More than $5 trillion of world trade is shipped through the South China Sea every year the Chinese fights China's territorial claims in the area with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan that have rival claims.
Though China has promised limited military construction on the islands it controls in the South China Sea and that will be only for defensive requirements, and maintains that it can do what it likes as is on its own territory. But now China has installed rocket launchers on a disputed reef in the South China Sea toward Vietnamese Sea area with more new details on China's ongoing military build-up coming out.
The United States has criticised what it called China's militarization of its maritime outposts and stressed the need for freedom of navigation by conducting periodic air and naval patrols near them and that have angered Beijing.