The Jamestown Foundation think tank in a report published in September last year said that oil rigs could serve as relay stations for drone communications, and that China’s oil rigs around the Pratas Islands are boosting its “kill chain,” as well as its command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting (C5ISRT) capabilities. Photo courtesy of Chen Ching-nengChina has 12 oil rigs around Pratas Islands, owned by the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), including seven rig structures, three floating production storage and offloading vessels, and two semi-submersible oil platforms, it said. These state-owned structures have dual-use potential and “may be more valuable for constraining Taiwan’s space than for their nominal commercial purpose of extracting oil,” the report said. On the surface, they are tools for developing resources, but they could also be used to gather intelligence and deploy the military, Yang said. Establishing offshore platforms inside Taiwan’s EEZ without permission infringes on UN law, but Taiwan cannot dispute this, as it is not a UN member, she added.
