What was once a mostly submerged feature in the northwestern corner of the South China Sea is expected to become one of China’s newest centers for power projection as Beijing seeks to consolidate its hold over most of the maritime area, including waters that legally fall within the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of neighboring states such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan and the Philippines.
Antelope Reef lies within the Crescent island group in the southwestern part of the Paracel Islands. It is 300 kilometers from Sanya Port in China’s Hainan province and 400 kilometers from Da Nang, Vietnam, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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Antelope Reef was previously one of China’s smallest outposts in the Paracels. But according to the AMTI, Beijing began major dredging at the reef in October, while “preliminary construction” started this year.
The development marks the first significant artificial island-building China has undertaken in the South China Sea since 2017.
Using satellite imagery, the AMTI estimated the reclaimed land at Antelope Reef at about 602 hectares.
“That figure is striking when compared with the scale of China’s features elsewhere in the Paracels,” it said.
Woody Island, considered Beijing’s largest feature in the Paracels, covers about 335 hectares. It hosts an air and naval base, along with Sansha “city,” which administers all of the South China Sea.
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“If construction proceeds at the pace seen in satellite imagery, Antelope Reef is set to become China’s largest feature in the Paracels and potentially in the entire South China Sea, equaling or even surpassing the size of Mischief Reef in the Spratlys,” the AMTI said.
Known as Lingyang Jiao in China and Hai Sam in Vietnam, Antelope Reef drew a protest this year from Pham Thu Hang, spokesperson for Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who said China’s reclamation activities were “completely illegal and invalid.”
China, however, maintained that the Paracel Islands, which it calls the Xisha Islands, are an “inherent part of China’s territory” and that “there is no dispute about it.”
It added that the activities “are aimed at improving the living conditions of the islands.”
The AMTI said at least some of the early structures at Antelope Reef were likely temporary facilities that would later be replaced with permanent infrastructure, as seen when China constructed its outposts in the Spratlys.
China reclaimed several features in the Spratlys within the Philippines’ EEZ.
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“On its surface, an additional major outpost in the Paracels would provide Beijing with incremental, rather than monumental, gains to its capabilities in the South China Sea,” the AMTI said.
“Assuming Antelope is developed into a military facility on par with China’s other large outposts, it will extend the reach of Chinese sensing capabilities closer to Vietnam’s shores and provide additional capacity and redundancy for its naval and air assets in the northern South China Sea,” it added.
More than an island
China’s development of Antelope Reef is an example of an attempt by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to project power across the South China Sea, a region at the center of maritime disputes for decades, according to the military magazine Indo-Pacific Defense Forum.
“When completed, the formerly uninhabited, largely submerged reef will be one of the CCP’s 20 such sites in the Paracels,” it said.
Based on data from the Open Source Centre (OSC), Antelope Reef is a critical foothold that China seized from Vietnam in 1974. It remained an undeveloped shoal with a diverse ecosystem of corals and marine fauna.
The OSC said China’s activities at the reef appeared to have created several square kilometers of new land as of Feb. 11, with significant reclamation visible across more than 15 square kilometers of the once-empty reef.
It said the first two dredgers arrived between Dec. 4 and 12 last year.
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The OSC said the Hainan provincial government announced a “public tender” in the first few months of 2023 to conduct an environmental capacity assessment of Antelope Reef and two other features in the South China Sea, “indicating that planning to develop the reef may have started three years ago.”
The AMTI said the reef’s proximity to Hainan could give China an opportunity to expand its efforts to establish a civilian presence in the Paracels.
“While this may not significantly change the strategic picture in the South China Sea, Beijing is certainly signaling its ability to continually expand its occupied features — a message perhaps intended most directly for Hanoi, whose own reclamation and landfill activities in the Spratlys remain ongoing,” it said. /dm
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