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.
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