ANALYSIS – Commercial satellite imagery shows that Vietnam is adding new construction and doing more landfilling on a remote reef it has occupied since 1978 in the disputed South China Sea.
And Beijing is not happy.
This according to Radio Free Asia (RFA). Planet Labs provided the most recent imagery.
Pearson Reef is in the Spratly Island chain. Officially classified as a ‘rock,’ it is 300 nautical miles east of Cam Ranh in central Vietnam.
The reef is seen as critical in the Spratly defense belt for Vietnam.
The Spratlys, an archipelago of islets, cays and reefs in the southern part of the South China Sea, are claimed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Malaysia.
And a few countries are turning their islets and reefs into islands.
China is the leader in building fake islands out of rocks in that region to then claim the territorial waters around them as belonging to Beijing. By 2016 it had created 3,000 acres of new land in the South China Sea.
The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said satellite images show aircraft hangars, missile shelters and radar and communications facilities built on the Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi Reefs in the South China Sea.
The photo below shows Chinese military facilities on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands.
This photo shows Chinese facilities on Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands.
The photo below shows Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands.
So, China isn’t too happy about Vietnam doing the same.
However, what Vietnam is doing still pales in scale to Beijing’s efforts. Vietnam had created just over 120 in the years prior to 2016.
Since 2014 Vietnam “has modestly expanded” many of the ‘features’ (reefs, shoals, rocks) it occupies in the South China Sea, but this week, there has been expanded work on this reef and what appear to be numerous Vietnamese supply ships nearby.
“That Planet image definitely shows a barge pulled up and what looks like plumes of sediment in the water,” Greg Poling, director of AMTI, told RFA.
“It is likely that they brought sand and backhoes in and are piling it on that southern edge of the island to expand it. Pearson has already been expanded by about six acres, but all of that previous landfill was done prior to 2014,” Poling said.
Vietnam has between 49 and 51 naval outposts spread across 27 ‘features,’ according to AMTI. There is evidence of reclamation at 10 of these features.
Meanwhile, a Chinese coast guard ship was reportedly recently chased away from Vietnamese water by a much smaller Vietnamese fisheries patrol boat during the weekend in the South China Sea.
And during their engagement, they almost collided, according to data from Marine Traffic, a ship-tracking website, reported RFA.
At one point the two ships were less than 33 feet) apart, said Ray Powell, from Stanford University, who first spotted the incident at sea.
“The Vietnamese ship was pretty bold given the difference in size – the Chinese ship is twice the size of the Vietnamese ship,” Powell said to RFA.
“It must have been a very tense engagement.”
The dangerous incident occurred about 50 nautical miles south of Vanguard Bank, another South China Sea flashpoint between Vietnam and China.
The same China Coast Guard ship was earlier accused of approaching about 150 yards from a Philippine Coast Guard ship and pointing a military-grade laser at the crew, causing them temporary blindness.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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This is getting interesting. It may just end up that both China and Russia will be isolated as Pariahs’ for their belligerence. Just because a country like China is large, it will fail if the other nations sanction them and just quit buying their goods, en masse. That is what is happening to the once Mighty Russia although it is hidden from their populace so far.
Leave them alone
Interesting article. I hope Vietnam is successful in countering China’s attempts to control the area. I will post this on my Facebook page. Hahn, let me know your thoughts there.