Vietnam is on a South China Sea island-building binge that can probably see it quickly surpass the space China has reclaimed in the strategic and contested Spratly Islands, in accordance to a new report from the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
Since the begin of 2025, Hanoi has been dredging and including floor space to eight options it controls in the island chain in the southeastern quarter of the South China Sea, stated the AMTI report, primarily based on satellite tv for pc imagery from MAXAR and Planet Labs.
The Spratly Island chain consists of greater than 100 small islands or reefs and is claimed in full by China, Vietnam and Taiwan with partial claims by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, in accordance to the CIA World Factbook.
China’s claims have drawn headlines for greater than a decade, as Beijing has reclaimed land at a number of options, constructing runways and army installations to solidify its positions. Its constructing of fortifications got here regardless of chief Xi Jinping in telling then-US President Barack Obama in 2015 that it had no plans of doing so.
Beijing claims nearly all of the 1.2 million-square-mile South China Sea, via which trillions of {dollars} in international commerce passes yearly, as its sovereign territory. It bases that declare on its so-called Nine Dash Line, which the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague has previously ruled has no legal basis.
Vietnam’s claims haven’t been as outspoken as China’s and its earlier reclamation efforts much less formidable.
Some of the reefs the place island-building is now going full tilt have lengthy been held by simply small pillboxes, together with Alison Reef, Collins Reef, East Reef, Landsdowne Reef and Petley Reef, in accordance to the AMTI, which is a undertaking of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). New land is additionally being constructed at three options that had been constructed up in earlier rounds of reclamation – Amboyna Cay, Grierson Reef and West Reef – the AMTI report stated.
“All 21 Vietnamese-occupied rocks and low-tide elevations in the Spratly Islands have now been expanded to include artificial land,” AMTI stated.
“As of March 2025, Vietnam had created about 70 percent as much artificial land in the Spratlys as China had. Reclamation at these eight new features all but ensures that Vietnam will match—and likely surpass—the scale of Beijing’s island-building,” the report stated.
Those 21 options below Hanoi’s management examine to simply seven below Beijing’s, in accordance to AMTI.
Meanwhile, on seven different Vietnamese-controlled islands the place reclamation work has largely been accomplished, military-related buildings, together with munitions depots, have been or are being constructed, in accordance to the report.
The new report comes amid a spike in tensions between China and the Philippines over South China Sea territory.
Competing claims by Beijing and Manila have turn out to be more and more contentious in the previous few years, together with violent clashes between their coast guards with water cannons and, in one case, bladed weapons. That conflict in the Spratlys close to Second Thomas Shoal, on which Philippine marines are stationed in a rusting World War II naval vessel, left a Filipino crewman missing a thumb.
Last month, north of the Spratlys close to Scarborough Shoal, a Chinese navy destroyer collided with a China Coast Guard ship as the two harassed a Philippine Coast Guard vessel in contested waters. Images confirmed heavy injury to the bow of the China Coast Guard ship.
The China-Philippines flare-ups might have offered Vietnam with wonderful cowl for its transfer to build up the islands it controls, analysts stated.
“For now much of China’s bandwidth of attention is directed at the Philippines, and it would rather maintain a stable front with each of the other Southeast Asian rivals in the South China Sea,” stated Collin Koh, a analysis fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore.
Ray Powell, director of SeaMild, a maritime transparency undertaking at Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, echoed Koh’s feedback.
“It seems that Beijing has calculated that keeping the Philippines isolated from the other South China Sea claimants is worth more right now than preventing Vietnam from making substantial territorial gains,” Powell stated.
“Hanoi may owe Manila a debt of gratitude, since it’s hard to see how this could have happened if Beijing hadn’t been so preoccupied with the problem to the east,” Powell stated, including that, “China has been remarkably muted about Vietnam’s island-building campaign.”
That was mirrored in Beijing’s official response to the AMTI report.
“The Spratly Islands are China’s inherent territory. China firmly opposes relevant countries’ construction activities on illegally occupied islands and reefs. China will take necessary measures to safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun informed a common press briefing Monday.
Vietnam and the Philippines didn’t touch upon the AMTI report when requested by NCS.
Past disagreements between China and Vietnam over South China Sea territory have resulted in bloodshed, together with in 1974 when a South Vietnamese naval vessel was sunk and 53 South Vietnamese troops killed in a battle with Chinese forces over the Paracel Island chain in the northwestern half of the South China Sea.
Beijing has maintained a large edge in the South China Sea since, and Koh stated it could not discover Hanoi’s newest strikes to be overly threatening.
“China commands a yawning gap in mobile military and coast guard assets – hence this probably explains why Beijing is not deemed to be alarmed enough to do anything to stop Hanoi,” he stated.
But he cautioned Beijing should not overestimate that benefit, noting that Vietnam and the Philippines get pleasure from enhancing relations.
“There’s been effort between Vietnam and the Philippines to come closer on maritime security cooperation, as evidenced by the recent bilateral coast guard exchanges and joint exercise. That should serve as a timely reminder to Beijing that Hanoi owns the Manila card of leverage,” Koh stated.
NCS’s Yong Xiong contributed to this report.