Vietnam’s island reclamation activities in the South China Sea made headlines in 2024 with a record area of land created and several airstrips planned on the new islands.
The Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, or AMTI, said that between November 2023 and June 2024, Hanoi created 280 hectares (692 acres) of new land across 10 of 27 features it occupies in the Spratly archipelago.
AMTI also reported that three to four runways might be planned for different features.
“Three years from when it first began, Vietnam is still surprising observers with the ever-increasing scope of its dredging and landfill in the Spratly Islands,” the think tank said.
Hanoi’s island building program stemmed from a Communist Party resolution in 2007 on maritime strategy toward the year 2020, according to Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
The resolution set out an integrated strategy to develop coastal areas, an exclusive economic zone, and 27 land features in the South China Sea with the objective that this area would contribute between 53% and 55% of the gross domestic product by 2020, Thayer said.
It was only in 2021 that Vietnam began a modest program of landfill and infrastructure construction on its features in the Spratly Islands, Thayer said.
By that time, China had completed the construction of its “Big Three” artificial islands in the South China Sea – Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs – and equipped them with runways and military facilities.
The island-building program focuses mainly on the so-called integrated marine economy, the analyst told Radio Free Asia, noting that there are only modest defenses such as pillboxes, trenches and gun emplacements on the newly developed features.
Risk of tension
Vietnam has long been wary of causing tension with China but its increasing assertiveness had led to a re-think in Hanoi.
“Vietnam has not placed major weapon systems on its land features that would threaten China’s artificial islands,” Thayer said.
“But no doubt the rise in Chinese aggressiveness against the Philippines after the election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. reinforced Vietnam’s determination not to leave its island features in the Spratlys exposed.”
“Vietnamese occupation also serves to deny China the opportunity to occupy these features as China did when it took control of unoccupied Mischief Reef belonging to the Philippines in 1984,” he added.
Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. navy captain based in Hawaii, said that on the surface, Vietnam and China appeared to have strong, positive relations but “at its roots, the relationship is one of distrust and for Vietnam, pragmatism.”
“Vietnam has noticed that the PRC is most aggressive around undefended or uninhabited islands and islets,” Schuster said, referring to China by its official name the People’s Republic of China.
“Hanoi therefore sees expanding, hardening and expanding the garrisons on its own islands as a means of deterring PRC aggression.”
Yet Vietnam’s island building activities have been met with criticism from some neighboring countries.
Malaysia sent a rare letter of complaint to Vietnam in October 2024 over its development of an airstrip on Barque Canada reef – a feature that Malaysia also claims in the South China Sea.
Another neighbor, the Philippines, announced that it was closely “monitoring” Vietnam’s island building activities.
In July 2023, the pro-China Manila Times published two reports on what it called “Vietnam’s militarization of the South China Sea,” citing leaked masterplans on island development from the Vietnamese defense ministry.
Shortly after the publication, a group of Filipinos staged a protest in front of the Vietnamese embassy in Manila, vandalizing the Vietnamese flag. The incident did not escalate but soured the usually friendly relationship between the two neighbors.
Reasonable response
The Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN has long been negotiating with China on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea and the consensus is to observe the status quo in the disputed waterway and maintain peace.
Azmi Hassan, a senior fellow at Malaysia’s Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research, explained that status quo means “there shouldn’t be any new reclamation, especially in the Spratly or Paracel Islands as new reclamation could create some instability.”
“But in the case of Vietnam, it’s very difficult to stop them because the Chinese have been doing it for many years and China has the longest airstrip and the biggest reclamation on Mischief Reef,” Hassan said.
Malaysia also built an airstrip on Pulau Layang-Layang, known internationally as Swallow Reef, which is claimed by several countries including Vietnam.
“So it’s very hard to criticize Vietnam because Malaysia has done it, China has done it, and the Philippines has been doing it for quite some time,” the analyst said.
Greg Poling, AMTI’s director, told RFA that in his opinion, Hanoi’s goal with the development of features in the South China Sea “appears to be to allow it to better patrol its exclusive economic zone by sea and air in the face of China’s persistent presence.”
“That seems a reasonable and proportionate response,” he said.
The U.S. government has taken no public position on the issue but the Obama administration did push for a construction freeze by all parties, Poling said.
Then-U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited Hanoi in June 2015 and discussed the issue during a meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart, Phung Quang Thanh and, according to the transcript of a press briefing.
Carter was told that “the government of Vietnam is considering … a permanent halt to reclamation and further militarization” of the new islands.
“But that was when the prime goal was to stop China’s island building,” Poling said. “Obviously that didn’t work so now I think the U.S. and other parties understand that Vietnam is not likely to agree to unilaterally restrain itself when China has already done it.”
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In 2015, Vietnam still insisted that it was only carrying out activities “to enhance and to consolidate the islands that are under our sovereignty.”
In the late Gen. Phung Quang Thanh’s words: “We do not expand those islands, we just consolidate to prevent the soil erosion because of the waves, to improve the livelihood of our people and of our personnel who are working and living there.”
“And for the submerged features, we have built small houses and buildings, which can accommodate only three people, and we do not expand those features. And the scope and the characteristics of those features are just civilian in nature,” Thanh told Carter.
Bad investment?
Fast forward 10 years, and Vietnam has reclaimed a total area of about half of what China has built up and among the 10 largest features in the Spratlys, five are being developed by Hanoi with an unknown, but no doubt massive budget.
The island building program, however, has been received positively by the Vietnamese public.
Photos and video clips from the now popular Bai Thuyen Chai, Dao Tien Nu and Phan Vinh – or Barque Canada, Tennent and Pearson reefs respectively – have been shared and admired by millions of social media users as proof of Vietnamese military might and economic success even if the construction comes at a big environmental cost.
South China Sea researcher Dinh Kim Phuc told RFA Vietnamese that despite the environmental damage, Vietnam’s actions “must happen” and are necessary for “strategic defense” as long as China does not quit its expansionist ambitions.
However, some experts have warned against the effectiveness of such artificial islands from a military standpoint.
“Like Chinese-built islands, Vietnamese built islands are, by nature, small areas of land that are difficult to defend against modern land-attack missile capabilities, and given their low altitude, they are at the mercy of salt water corrosion of structures and systems ashore,” said Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst in defense strategy and capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
“So as with Chinese experience, the Vietnamese will also struggle to base military capabilities on these islands for extended periods of time,” Davis told RFA.
“In the longer term, they are also going to be vulnerable to the effects of climate change - most notably, sea level rise, which could quickly swamp a low-level landmass and see it become unusable.”
“These challenges are why I don’t worry too much about those Chinese-built bases in the South China Sea, as I think Beijing has made a bad investment there,” the analyst added.
AMTI’s Poling said rising sea levels and storm surge would threaten all the islands “but it is something that both China and Vietnam are likely able to cope with by continually refilling the islands and building up higher sea walls.”
That would entail considerable costs and cause even more environmental impact.
Iman Muttaqin Yusof in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this story
Edited by Mike Firn