Photos show China’s ‘great wall of sand’
New man-made islands in South China Sea could anchor territorial claims
HONG KONG— The pace at which China is building islands in the South China Sea has been shown by satellite photos, lending weight to claims by U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Harry Harris that China is building a “great wall of sand.”
The photos, published by an initiative of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, focus on China’s reclamation efforts in the Spratly Islands on Mischief Reef, a feature also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan.
Artificial islands could help China anchor its territorial claims and potentially develop bases in waters that host some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. Disputes over the South China Sea, of which China claims about four-fifths under a so-called nine-dash line drawn on a 1940s map, have escalated as China expands the reach of its military.
Satellite photographs show construction efforts on Mischief Reef that appear to have begun only in recent months, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI). The group’s aim is to “promote transparency in the Indo-Pacific to dissuade assertive behaviour and conflict,” according to its website.
“China is creating a great wall of sand, with dredges and bulldozers,” Admiral Harris said in a speech in Canberra last month. “China is building artificial land by pumping sand onto live coral reefs — some of them submerged — and paving over them with concrete.”
Philippine fishermen first reported that China was building structures on Mischief Reef in 1995, when the reef was completely submerged at high tide, according to AMTI. The structures were upgraded to a single, permanent multistory building in 1998. By 2013, the original structures had been transformed into a “forward naval station,” permitting the basing of one People’s Liberation Army Navy frigate at a time, according to the website.
A photograph taken in January shows a dredger widening the entrance to the reef, the website said. Photos from March 16 show new structures, fortified seawalls and dredgers, in a sign that construction is progressing.