Vietnamese construction work in the Spratly Islands continues to move forward, with “potential military structures” including runways taking shape on several of its outposts in the archipelago, a U.S. think tank said this week.
In a briefing released on Wednesday, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) stated that the ongoing developments show that Vietnam is “determined to maximize the strategic potential of the features it occupies” in the South China Sea.
AMTI, which is run by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., confirmed an earlier report by Radio Free Asia (RFA) that Vietnam was building a runway on Barque Canada Reef, the largest feature that it controls in the Spratly Islands. Following recent land reclamation works, RFA reported, the island now stretches over a length of 4.5 kilometers, “making it possible to develop an airstrip of 3,000 meters or more.”
According to AMTI, “the area currently being prepared for paving is approximately 8,000 feet [2,438 meters] long.” This is around twice the length of Vietnam’s 1,300-meter runway on Spratly Island, and would be “sufficient for most aircraft to take off and land at sea level.”
AMTI said that the new runway on Barque Canada Reef “significantly expands Vietnam’s options for deploying combat aircraft to the Spratly Islands,” which are also claimed, in whole or in part, by Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. China has already constructed 3,000-meter runways on three of its own features in the Spratly Islands.
AMTI said that there were signs that airstrips were under development on other Vietnamese-controlled features in the Spratlys. One location it mentioned was the western end of Pearson Reef, which “has been rapidly expanded in recent months and brought to a conspicuous length of 8,200 feet [2,499 meters].” It added, “With work now beginning to fill in this extended area, it would be unsurprising to see another runway materialize at Pearson.”
Another was the “formerly minuscule outpost” on Ladd Reef, which has also been extended to a length of 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) in recent months. It said that current structures “ would seem to preclude the installation of continuous runway along its length for now. But the scale and shape of the developing landmass warrants further attention.”
AMTI also noted other “signs of potential military structures” on a number of Vietnamese-occupied features, including “new formations of berms encasing six protected areas” on Barque Canada Reef, Central Reef, Tennent Reef, Namyit Island, South Reef, and Ladd Reef. It said that these areas “could be intended to house anti-ship artillery or missile platforms.”
The construction of runways and other military facilities follows a period of rapid land reclamation in Vietnam’s Spratly Island outposts. In June, AMTI reported that Hanoi had “significantly accelerated” the expansion of its outposts in the Spratly Islands over the last six months, creating “almost as much new land as it had in the previous two years combined.”
In the six months after November 2023, the briefing found, Vietnam had created 692 new acres (280 hectares) of land across a total of 10 features in the Spratly Islands. This compared to 404 acres (163.5 hectares) of land in the first 11 months of 2023 and 342 acres (138.4 hectares) in the whole of 2022.
The continued expansion work demonstrates Vietnam’s desire to match China’s construction of massive artificial islands in the South China Sea, and thereby to strengthen its claims over the archipelago. AMTI noted that land reclamation and construction was ongoing, and that “it remains difficult to say when the expansion will end – and what new capabilities Vietnam will have once it has.”
An interesting subplot here is the relative tolerance that China has shown to Vietnam’s construction activities, at a time when it has responded with lopsided force to minor activities that the Philippines has carried out to sustain its presence on its own features in the Spratly Islands. One can probably put this down to the fact that Vietnam is not a treaty ally of the United States, which seems to have prompted Chinese strategists to view the Philippines as little more than a Washington proxy, as well as the political, ideological, historical, and cultural affinities that bind the ruling communist parties in Hanoi and Beijing.