Vietnam has been adding more artificial islands since 2021. According to Radio Free Asia, the country has added more than 600 hectares of dry land around the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in the last year alone.
The greatest activity took place on 'Barque Canada Reef', an atoll approx. 400 km south-west of Spratly Island and around 630 km south-east of Vietnam. The Philippine island of Palawan lies around 430 km to the west.
Map of the atoll 'Barque Canada Reef'. Graphic: OpenStreetMap - Paul Nelson/RFA
This new island is almost five kilometres long and offers enough space for expansion, including for a strategic runway with a currently completed length of around 1,000 metres of the planned 3,000 metres. The Asia Maritime Transparency Institute (AMTI) assumes that this will help the Vietnamese military to extend the range of its sea patrols.
New land - Barque Canada Reef, an atoll of the Spratly Islands. Image: NASA
With the modernisation of its ports and airfields, Vietnam is likely to be able to maintain a continuous maritime law enforcement presence in the future. This will significantly strengthen its ability to control the entire Spratly Islands region and could lead to a maritime escalation between China and Vietnam. So far, however, China's response has been restrained - in contrast to its confrontational approach towards the Philippines. Although the Philippines also lays claim to the archipelago's EEZ, it is not carrying out any island-building programmes.
Map of the South China Sea. Source: Google Maps
However, the Philippines and Vietnam are endeavouring to settle their disputes over maritime claims in the South China Sea. Both states want to accept the outcome of international arbitration proceedings.
However, Vietnam is well on the way to becoming more strategic in this area, which is likely to worry the Chinese authorities.
kdk, Maritime Executive
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