China urges regional alert as US plans to reclaim Pacific airfield
China's Defense Ministry has asked the countries in the Asia-Pacific to be on high alert as the United States steps up military deployment in the region.
Beijing on Thursday urged the regional countries to be vigilant after reports of a US plan to revive a Pacific airfield that launched the atomic bombings of Japan in 1945.
“The Chinese military is paying close attention to moves by the United States, and will firmly safeguard China's maritime rights, security and sovereignty in the region,” Wu Qian, a spokesperson at the defense ministry, said at a news conference.
“Its goal is for its own selfish gains and to maintain its hegemony. Its nature is to stoke confrontation,” the official said of the United States.
Earlier in December, a US air force general told Japan's Nikkei Asia newspaper that the Pentagon will make "significant progress" towards reclaiming the Tinian North airfield from overgrown jungle vegetation in the coming months, as part of a plan to disperse aircraft across the Indo-Pacific region.
General Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of Pacific Air Forc, said the North Airfield “has extensive pavement underneath the overgrown jungle. We’ll be clearing that jungle out between now and summertime.”
“If you pay attention in the next few months, you will see significant progress,” he added, without providing a timeline for when the airfield will be in use.
“The United States continues to strengthen its Asia-Pacific deployments, this is full of a Cold War mindset,” Wu Qian said.
The airfield, abandoned after World War II, lies on Tinian Island, part of the Northern Mariana Islands, which is a US territory.
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