It has been just five years since China initiated its major land reclamation in the South China Sea, and the country has already shifted the territorial status quo in its favour—without facing any international pushback. The anniversary of the start of its island building underscores the transformed geopolitics in a corridor central to the international maritime order.
In December 2013, the Chinese government pressed the massive Tianjing dredger into service at Johnson South Reef in the Spratly archipelago, far from the Chinese mainland. The Spratlys are to the south of the Paracel Islands, which China seized in 1974, capitalizing on American forces’ departure from South Vietnam. In 1988, the reef was the scene of a Chinese attack that killed 72 Vietnamese sailors and sank two of their ships.
The dredger’s job is to fragment sediment on the seabed and deposit it on a reef until a low-lying man made island emerges. The Tianjing —boasting its own propulsion system and a capacity to extract sediment at a rate of 4,530 cubic metres per hour—did its job very quickly, creating 11 hectares of new land, including a harbour, in less than four months. All the while, a Chinese warship stood guard.
Since then, China has built six more artificial islands in the South China Sea and steadily expanded its military assets in this highly strategic area, through which one-third of global maritime trade passes. It has constructed port facilities, military buildings, radar and sensor installations, hardened shelters for missiles, vast logistical warehouses for fuel, water and ammunition, and even airstrips and aircraft hangars on the man-made islands. Reinforcing its position further, China has strong-armed its neighbours into suspending the exploitation of natural resources within their own exclusive economic zones.
Consequently, China has turned its contrived historical claims to the South China Sea into reality and gained strategic depth, despite a 2016 ruling by an international arbitral tribunal invalidating those claims. China’s leaders seem intent on proving the old adage that “possession is nine-tenths of the law”. And the world, it seems, is letting them get away with it.
The Chinese did not leave that outcome to chance. Before building their islands in the South China Sea, they spent several months testing possible US reactions through symbolic moves. First, in June 2012, China seized the disputed Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines, without eliciting a tangible international response.