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.
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