China plans to set up a giant monitoring system under the East Sea

China plans to set up a surveillance system under the South China Sea and East China Sea, which is said to be able to detect the movements of foreign ships and degrade the stealth capabilities of US submarines.

Graphical simulation of an underwater surveillance network. Graphic: SCMP

According to televisionCCTVThe monitoring network will cost two billion yuan ($290 million) and "serve as a platform to provide long-term monitoring data and support experiments in environmental research in the two seas," according to the report.

Speaking to the television station,Jian Zhimin, a marine scientist at Tonji University in Shanghai, said the move cemented China’s status as an “ocean power”. “An ocean power must have the ability to reach the high seas and go global,” he said.

Zhou Huaiyang, his colleague, added that the system could bring "national defense" benefits.

Carl Thayer, a regional security analyst and emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales, Australia, said China "could take advantage of this undersea network story to place sensors designed to detect the movements of surface warships and submarines."

Such a system “reduces the stealth advantage that submarines have,” according to Mr. Thayer. “This would be of direct concern to the United States and countries in the region that operate submarines.”

Mr. Thayer said that China's underwater surveillance system could serve a similar purpose to the US's Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS), used during the Cold War to detect and monitor submarine activity.

China has disputes in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. It claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, overlapping the claims of its Southeast Asian neighbors, including Vietnam and the Philippines. It has also illegally reclaimed and militarized rocks in Vietnam’s Spratly Islands. In the East China Sea, disputed islands have soured relations between Beijing and Tokyo for decades.

According to VNE