A serious, literally grave, situation was developing in south China sea this morning. Since one of India's warships is permanently positioned off the Vietnames coastline in defence of oil exploration assets, New Delhi can't but get involved in the dispute that has escalated with Beijing deploying batteries of SAM missiles in one of the artificially-created islands. Taiwan's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that China had set up missile batteries on Woody Island in the Paracels chain, which has been under Chinese control for decades but also is claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam. A U.S. defence official also confirmed the "apparent deployment" of the missiles. President Xi Jinping promised, not too long ago, not to militarize the disputed atolls. However, satellite images showed two batteries of eight HQ-9 surface-to-air missile launchers and a radar system were deployed on Woody Island sometime after Feb. 3, just days after the U.S. rebuffed China's efforts to control one of the world's busiest shipping lanes by sending a warship into the area. The positioning of the missiles casts further doubt on Xi's pledge at a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington in late September not to militarize the islands and suggests China is prepared to escalate tensions in order to defend its claims. Responding to the development, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday the United States expects to have "very serious" talks with China about militarization of the South China Sea.  This was followed by the United States and the European Union warning China on Wednesday, urging it to respect an international court ruling expected later this year on its dispute with the Philippines over territory in the South China Sea. "There is every evidence, every day that there has been an increase of militarization of one kind or another," Kerry told reporters when asked about the reported deployment. "It's of serious concern."We have had these conversations with the Chinese and I am confident that over the next days we will have further very serious conversation on this." China claims 80 percent of the South China Sea that annually hosts $5 trillion of trade traffic and rejects the authority of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague hearing the dispute, even though Beijing has ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea on which the case is based. Amy Searight, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defence for South and Southeast Asia, said the United States, the European Union, and allies like Australia, Japan and South Korea must be ready to make clear that the court's ruling must be binding and that there would be costs to China for not respecting it if it lost the case. Reporting by M K Shukla based on editing of global reports