South China Sea: Beijing appears to be building runway on disputed island claimed by Vietnam

Satellite images show new airstrip stretching across Triton Island in the Paracels, but Hanoi and Taipei say the archipelago is theirs
The runway is much shorter than others China has built on contested islands, limiting the size of the warplanes that can use it

South China Sea

Jack Lau

Published: 7:00pm, 17 Aug 2023

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China appears to be building a runway on an island also claimed by Vietnam, according to satellite images, in Beijing’s latest move to build military facilities in contested South China Sea territory.

A new airstrip started to appear in mid-July on Triton Island, the southernmost and westernmost of the Paracel Islands, known in Chinese as the Xisha Islands and in Vietnamese as the Hoang Sa Islands.

Vietnam also claims the islands, as does Taipei, whose South China Sea claims mostly overlap with those of Beijing. Triton Island is the closest in the Paracel archipelago to Vietnam’s east coast.

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Beijing has a history of fortifying disputed islands and artificial islands in the South China Sea by building military facilities to assert its sovereignty. For example, China has also built runways on Fiery Cross Reef and Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, known as the Nansha Islands in Chinese.

Rival claimants and Western countries have accused Beijing of militarising the contested waters, which it has justified by saying the military installations were needed to defend its territory.

Chinese state media reports about military activity on Triton Island show members of the Chinese navy training and growing crops while stationed there. China has also built a helipad, buildings, radomes, a basketball court and a port to support the navy.

The new airstrip is 630 metres long (2,067 feet) and stretches from east to west across the island, according to the images images taken by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites. The runway is much shorter than others built by China, limiting the size of the warplanes that could use it.

By contrast, the runway on Fiery Cross Reef, known in China as Yongshu Jiao, is more than 3km long – potentially long enough for the People’s Liberation Army’s H-6 bombers to land and take off, according to analysts.

A new building around 100 metres to the south of the Triton Island airstrip was also built around the same time as the runway and appears to be connected to it by road or taxiway.

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Compared to other outcrops in the Paracel Islands, Triton Island is much smaller. The waters near the archipelago are rich in resources and part of a commercially active waterway.

The foreign ministries of Vietnam and China did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new facilities on the island.

China and Vietnam have clashed multiple times over conflicting territorial claims in the South China Sea. In May, Vietnam accused a Chinese survey ship, the Xiang Yang Hong 10, and its coastguard escorts of violating its sovereignty.

Vietnamese fishers have long accused the Chinese coastguard of harassment and damaging their ships.