Vietnam has been ramping-up its dredging and landfill work in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) in the South China Sea, creating another 133 hectares of land since December last year, a US think tank said in a report.
The expansion, much larger than 49 hectares it had created from 2012 to last year, made Vietnam second only to China in terms of island buildup in the Spratly Islands, Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in its report this week, citing satellite imagery.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Photo: Reuters
China claims sovereignty over vast swathes of the South China Sea, including the areas where Vietnam has been building up islands.
The sea is one of the world’s most contested waterways, where more than US$3 trillion of trade passes each year.
Taiwan, China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have lodged competing claims for some or all of the Spratly Islands.
The recent expansion by Vietnam was the most noticeable at Barque Canada Reef, called Bai Thuyen Chai in Vietnam, where 210 acres of land was created in the past year, the report produced by CSIS’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) said.
Vietnam had started using cutter suction dredgers to “accelerate its dredging efforts,” and last month, it began dredging at two additional features, including South Reef and Central Reef, the report said.
Vietnam’s efforts have remained focused on dredging and landfill, with construction of infrastructure yet to begin, it said.
China created more than 1,295 hectares of land from 2013 to 2016 in the area, the think tank said.
In August, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam rejected a map released by China that denotes its claims to sovereignty including in the South China Sea.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’