The Chinese coastguard patrolled around disputed sites controlled by Vietnam in the South China Sea last week, vessel tracking information shows.
Three patrol ships left a Chinese base on Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands on Thursday and circled around a series of land features – some of which Vietnam has built facilities on – before returning to the reef on Saturday, according to Automatic Identification System data.
The purpose of the patrol by the coastguard vessels – identified by the hull numbers 4301, 5009 and 21559 – was not clear.
It took place at a time of heightened tensions in the South China Sea, where China has territorial disputes with Vietnam, the Philippines and other rival claimants and after Beijing and Hanoi reaffirmed a commitment to “properly handle maritime issues”.00:29
While the Chinese coastguard has had regular run-ins with Philippine vessels in recent years, it has largely refrained from open confrontation with Vietnam over their maritime disputes.
The Chinese ships patrolled an area in the Spratly Islands last week that took in Grierson Reef, Sin Cowe Island, Lansdowne Reef, Collins Reef, Pearson Reef, Alison Reef, Cornwallis South Reef and Tennent Reef.
Vietnam has reclaimed a significant amount of land on four of those reefs – Pearson, Alison, Cornwallis South and Tennent – since 2021.
It is upgrading 11 features in the ongoing building work, according to satellite monitoring data from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
As of May, Pearson Reef – which is known as Bisheng Jiao in China and Dao Phan Vinh in Vietnam – had been expanded to cover 1.27 sq km (0.49 sq miles), making it one of the largest artificial islands in the waters under Vietnamese control.
Structures built on the reef include a 2.5km airfield and a large harbour that possibly has military facilities, according to the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI), a defence think tank in Beijing.
Its information shows that a runway has also been built on Tennent Reef – known as Wumie Jiao in Chinese and Da Tien Nu in Vietnamese.
Vitenam has also been carrying out land reclamation on Namyit Island, Sand Cay, Barque Canada Reef, Discovery Great Reef, Ladd Reef, Central Reef and South Reef.
All of the reefs are part of the Spratly archipelago, a hotspot of overlapping territorial claims, including from Beijing, Hanoi, Manila, Kuala Lumpur and Brunei. Each claimant maintains a presence on various features, contributing to what is often described as the world’s most intricate geopolitical puzzle.
China has conducted large-scale artificial island-building in the Spratlys to strengthen its claim to the area – efforts dubbed the “Great Wall of Sand”. The projects, carried out between 2014 and 2015, have created more than 14 sq km of land and resulted in seven artificial islands with military facilities.
Vietnam occupies the most features among claimant states in the Spratlys, with the scale of its expansion on disputed sites second only to China. It has built more than 8.5 sq km of land in the last four years up to May, according to the SCSPI.
Although China and Vietnam had a military clash over the Spratlys in 1988, Beijing’s response to Hanoi’s island-building in recent years has been relatively muted.
In 2016, a tribunal in The Hague dismissed Beijing’s expansive claims to the resource-rich South China Sea as having “no legal basis” in a case brought by the Philippines. China has rejected the ruling.
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