Vietnam Has Silently Upgraded Their Facilities In The Island
VIETNAM’S SILENT UPGRADE – Since 2017, Vietnam has been making upgrades for their facilities in the islands of West Philippine Sea or South China Sea.
It is apparent that the dispute regarding the ownership of the island has not yet been resolved.
Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative or AMTI confirmed it on Wednesday, April 10. AMTI posted in a web log that Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, has continued putting upgrades since mid-2017.
AMTI posted this on their website on April 8, 2018:
“Since AMTI last published a survey of all of Vietnam’s facilities in mid-2017, Hanoi has continued modest upgrades to the island.”
According to them, Vietnam currently occupies 49 outposts across 27 features spread all over the island. And of the 27 features, only 10 of them are considered islets while the rest are underwater reefs and banks.
In the span of one year, from 2015 to 2016, Vietnam reportedly “…undertook an expansion of the island to extend its small runway and create a protected harbor,” AMTI said.
Hanoi have created 40 acres of new land with the expansion. They have made this possible by dredging or relocating part of the island’s reef with a construction equipment and covering it with sand.
AMTI also claimed that the process taken by Vietnam takes more time but is less damaging for the environment in their statement:
“This process was more time-consuming and less environmentally disastrous than the methods used for China’s industrial-scale dredging and landfill at its facilities in the Spratlys, but still involved the intentional destruction of coral reef.”
This is based on an article from Rappler.
According to the article, AMTI noted “initial Philipine efforts to start runway repairs” on the Pag-asa Islands back in May 2018. And to respond, China reportedly depoyed maritime militia to the Island.
President Rodrigo Duterte, however, stated that he will not allow China to occupy the Island.
That is all there is to it for now, we’ll post updates as soon as we got them.