| April 8, 2019 | AMTI BRIEF |
Vietnam continues to quietly upgrade its facilities in the Spratly Islands, though apparently without facing the same reaction from China’s maritime militia forces as the Philippines recently has. Vietnam occupies 49 outposts spread across 27 features in the vicinity of the Spratly Islands. Of those 27 features, only 10 can be called islets while the rest are mostly underwater reefs and banks. Spratly Island is the largest of Vietnam’s outposts and the administrative center of its presence in the area. In 2015-16, Vietnam undertook an expansion of the island to extend its small runway and create a protected harbor. In total, Hanoi created about 40 acres of new land at Spratly Island through a process that involved the use of construction equipment to dredge up part of the reef surrounding the island and cover it in sand. 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. Tiếp tục đọc “Slow and Steady: Vietnam’s Spratly Upgrades” |
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