The Voice of America (VOA) 10 reported that the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) report, citing satellite images, said there has been “significant new construction” on the Vietnam-controlled West Reef in the Spratly Islands (known as the Spratlys in mainland China), including several sea defense facilities, administrative buildings, concrete platforms and shelters, and a tower structure that may be used for communications.
The report also said that Vietnam has made “significant upgrades” to its control of Sin Cowe Island over the past two years with the construction of coastal defenses.
According to Gregory Poling, head of the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative, all 10 islands under Vietnamese control have some sort of military facility. And the new facilities have improved coastal guns to deter any amphibious landings by the Chinese Communist Party, in addition to Vietnam’s intent to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from interfering with the resupply of Vietnam-held islands, which it has done in the past to interfere with the Philippines’ resupply of islands over which it claims sovereignty.
Polin also said that Vietnam’s other Spratly Islands facilities are equipped with radar, and that Vietnam hopes missile platforms there can “target Chinese bases” if needed.
The South China Sea is rich in resources, including fisheries, shipping lanes and fossil fuel reserves under the sea, and Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan all have de facto control over some of the islands and atolls in the Spratlys, which China calls the Spratlys.
The Chinese authorities claim that 90 percent of the waters are under their jurisdiction and, backed by their strong military power, have been the first to reclaim about 1,200 hectares of land in the disputed waters since about a decade ago and have deployed military equipment on some of the islets to strengthen their control over the islands and atolls.
Vietnam’s land reclamation is about 1/20th of the CCP’s, and after completing its latest fortifications, Vietnam will be second only to the CCP in terms of island defense.
Carl Thayer, professor emeritus of Southeast Asian studies at the University of New South Wales in Australia, analyzed this as Vietnam “signaling to China that if you attack, you will pay the price, and it will not be as easy as yesterday when the henhouse was unguarded, but now we (Vietnam) have the ability to protect it. “
Nguyen Thanh Trung, director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City, also noted in this regard that “the Vietnamese government is worried about the Chinese government’s artificial land reclamation, so they want to do something to strengthen the defenses of these islands as well.”
Vietnam and the Communist Party of China have reportedly endured decades of border disputes that have resulted in casualties when the two countries clashed at sea in 1974 and 1988, and in 2014, the deployment of a Communist Party oil rig in disputed waters also triggered a ship collision that led to deadly anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam.
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