Vietnam’s artificial-island building draws measured response from Philippines, other neighbors

FORUM Staff

Vietnam is fast-tracking its artificial island projects in the disputed South China Sea, a move that aims to counter the People’s Republic of China (PRC), analysts say. By dredging the seabed and piling the material atop reefs in the Spratly Islands, Hanoi added more than 280 hectares of land between November 2023 and June 2024, reported the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. It’s more land than Vietnam created in the previous two years combined.

The PRC has been building artificial islands for at least a decade and has heavily militarized the features in the contested waterway. Beijing claims that other nations need permission to sail near its artificial islands. The assertion has no legal foundation, and nations including the United States conduct routine freedom of navigation operations in international waters near the Spratly Islands.

In defiance of international law and a 2016 international tribunal ruling, the PRC claims most of the South China Sea, including the Spratlys, a group of more than 100 strategic islets and reefs surrounded by rich fisheries and potential oil and gas deposits. The archipelago is about midway between the Philippines and Vietnam, hundreds of kilometers from the PRC mainland.

The PRC’s Spratly Islands claim overlaps not only with Vietnam’s but also with those of Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

The PRC is increasingly aggressive toward rival claimant states, particularly the Philippines, whose internationally recognized exclusive economic zone (EEZ) extends into the islands. Other nations that assert sovereignty over the islands have taken more diplomatic approaches.

Philippine Navy Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad said officials are monitoring Vietnam’s artificial-island building but indicated a measured response, according to Radio Free Asia.

The Philippines and Vietnam have “friendly relations,” Trinidad said, adding, “Vietnam does not initiate illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive actions against us, unlike China.”

Philippine Coast Guard Commodore Jay Tarriela told reporters that Vietnam does not “engage in harassing our fishermen or illegally deploying coast guard vessels and maritime militia in the waters surrounding our occupied maritime features.”

The PRC has intensified its campaign to intimidate the Philippines in the South China Sea as it pressures multiple Southeast Asian nations. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has vowed his nation, which has a longtime mutual defense treaty with the U.S., will not concede its territory.

In a recent clash near Second Thomas Shoal, where Manila has a military outpost, Chinese coast guard members used bladed weapons to damage Philippine inflatable boats before boarding and looting the vessels, according to the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The attack injured eight Philippine Sailors, according to reports.

For more than a decade, the PRC has also obstructed Vietnamese drilling rigs in Hanoi’s waters, Foreign Policy magazine reported. Similarly, in waters Malaysia claims — and where it has oil and gas reserves — the PRC maintains a near-constant presence, according to The Washington Post newspaper.

By contrast, the Philippines and Vietnam have agreed to promote dialogue and set up confidence-building mechanisms such as a hotline. Analysts said memorandums of understanding the nations signed in January 2024 could lead to milestones such as the 2022 agreement between Indonesia and Vietnam delineating the boundaries of their EEZs in the South China Sea.

In addition to supporting livelihoods throughout the region, the sea is vital to international shipping, with an estimated $5 trillion in trade transiting annually.

The U.S., which upholds freedom of navigation and protects sea lines of communication globally, supports a binding code of conduct in the region. Formal negotiations for a deal between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Beijing began in 2002. The Chinese Communist Party, however, has delayed any agreement that could limit the PRC’s vast claims.