HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Vietnam has revved up its land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea this year, beginning construction on eight previously untouched features in the Spratly Islands.
The hotly contested archipelago has been turned from a scattering of low-lying reefs and partially submerged rocks into weaponized artificial islands mainly by China and Vietnam.
Analysts say Hanoi’s island-building is a defensive response to Beijing’s militarization of its South China Sea outposts including those in the Spratly Islands, since 2013.
The South China Sea is a resource-rich waterway and busy shipping lane that trillions of dollars of trade passes through yearly. Six countries have overlapping claims in the sea that stretches about 1.4 million square miles but Beijing has the biggest presence and claims the majority of the territory.
Vietnam began its island building push in 2021. With just 11 islands that year, now all 21 Vietnamese-occupied rocks and low-tide elevations in the Spratlys have been expanded to include artificial land. Vietnam had created about 70% as much artificial land in the Spratlys as China had as of March, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said in an August report.
This “all but ensures that Vietnam will match – and likely surpass – the scale of Beijing’s island-building,” the report said.
Hanoi’s foreign press office did not respond to requests for comment.
Alexander Vuving, professor at Honolulu’s Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, told Defense News the South China Sea is an “existential issue” for Vietnam – crucial to the country’s economy, security, and national identity.
“Vietnam right now is one of the major exporting nations in the world and 90% of Vietnam’s foreign trade exports to the world go through the South China Sea,” Vuving said.
“The South China Sea is also important to Vietnam securitywise,” he added. “The French came into Vietnam from the sea, and the Americans also came to Vietnam from the sea … now you have the Chinese threat.”
Weaponized islands
AMTI satellite imagery taken this year shows that Vietnam is turning five of its claimed features that previously housed only small concrete pillbox structures into military outposts.
These newly fortified reefs – Alison Reef, Collins Reef, East Reef, Landsdowne Reef, and Petleys Reef – now have munitions storage depots in the form of six containers surrounded and separated by thick walls. Militarization of Vietnam’s outposts also includes ports, harbors, and an 8,000-foot runway on Barque Canada Reef.
AMTI Director Gregory Poling said Hanoi nearing Beijing’s level of land reclamation matters symbolically but Vietnam will remain overpowered at sea.
“None of this means that Vietnam is actually capable of projecting power in the same way that China can. Nor does it mean that Vietnam is being as aggressive or as environmentally destructive as China is,” Poling said.
“Vietnam has never, as far as anybody knows, used forces deployed on these islands for aggression toward the other claimants, whereas China does so on a daily basis,” he said.
China’s South China Sea actions include using its maritime militia and coast guard to ram, swarm, and use powerful water cannons on foreign ships and to patrol inside other nations’ exclusive economic zones.
Beijing’s three largest artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago – Mischief Reef, Subi Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef – have antiship and antiaircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment, underground storage tunnels, and fighter jets.
Poling said Hanoi will likely aim to match Beijing’s ability to forward deploy its coast guard and aircraft to the islands and to improve its intelligence collection.
Construction is continuing on Vietnam’s artificial islands. A Straits Times report described nonstop cranking of towering cranes on South Reef. According to local media reports, soldiers stationed on South Reef are being encouraged to raise chickens and grow vegetables.
Nguyen The Phuong, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New South Wales focusing on Vietnam’s military, said Hanoi is taking a defensive stance.
“The ultimate goal is to be able to defend the islands under Vietnam’s jurisdiction better and to inflict some kind of maximum damage to China if the worst-case scenario happens,” Phuong said from Ho Chi Minh City.
“Vietnam doesn’t want to be embroiled in that kind of conflict but we have to be prepared,” he said.
Geopolitical implications
Hanoi has kept a tight lid on its island-building drive — wary of provoking its powerful neighbor or being seen as enacting the same kind of “bad” behavior as Beijing, according to Ray Powell, director of the maritime transparency initiative SeaLight at the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University.
Powell, who was serving as U.S. air attaché to Vietnam when China kicked off its island-building in 2013, said the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi tried to discourage Vietnam from following China’s lead.
“We wanted to have this principled position that any changing of the [South China Sea] status quo was bad,” Powell said. He said he believes the U.S. stance has likely shifted.
“We, the United States, weren’t able to stop the madness when China did it and so now we’re going to go and tell Vietnam not to do it?” he asked.
Washington may even support the effort and see Vietnam’s land reclamation as making it “harder for China to take things by force at some point in the future,” he said.
The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi did not respond to requests for comment.
Although Vietnam’s navy wanted to start its island-building push as early as 2013, it took until 2021 to gather funds, internal consensus, and dredging technology, Phuong said.
Since then, Beijing’s response has been “low profile,” he added.
The Vietnamese sometimes “see Chinese vessels going around the construction site, or sometimes Chinese vessels blocked the movement of vessels transporting” goods for construction, Phuong said.
Van Pham, the Hanoi-based founder of the nonprofit South China Sea Chronicle Initiative, said Chinese vessels patrolling near Vietnamese outposts rarely appear in local media.
“Several years ago, Vietnam’s state media reported an incident in which a Vietnamese navy supply ship was obstructed by a Chinese vessel en route to a feature in the Spratly Islands. Such reports are rare given Vietnam’s quiet diplomacy; additional incidents may occur without public disclosure,” she wrote.
Philippine focus, Hanoi’s timing
Analysts see Beijing’s focus on the Philippines as an opportunity for Vietnam to expand its land.
Hanoi “also sort of had to wait for the right moment,” Powell said, adding that the current Chinese focus on the Philippines and its alliance with the United States “has given them that moment.”
“Everything the Philippines does is treated like the Philippines is just a sock puppet and that the Americans are pulling the strings,” Poling said.
However, he said it is likely that Chinese authorities have realized that as Vietnamese island building nears completion “they can’t just pretend it’s not happening.”
Vuving said he expects Vietnam’s island building is seen by most countries as a welcome counterweight to Beijing.
“China now has four big runways complete with deep-sea harbors and big artificial islands that can serve as dual-use military bases in the middle of the South China Sea. They can literally turn the South China Sea – a big sea – into a choke point,” he said.
“But Vietnam is now also building a lot of new ground in the middle of the sea and maybe also turning some of their artificial islands into runways and deep-sea harbors so it potentially can also correct the imbalance,” he said.
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