Posted on June 3, 2026
By Bruno Teles
The speed is impressive: what was a reef with two constructions gained an area comparable to the largest Chinese military base in the region in just over six months. To hide the operation, the dredging fleet allegedly turned off their trackers. Beijing speaks of development; neighbors and analysts see a strategic advance.
An almost submerged sandbank turned, in a few months, into a Chinese artificial island of nearly 1,500 acres in the South China Sea. The advance, captured by satellite images at Antelope Reef in the Paracel Islands, reignited tensions with Vietnam and fears about the militarization of one of the busiest trade routes on the planet, through which more than one-fifth of all global maritime trade passes.
The dredging began in mid-October 2025 and by March 2026, about 1,490 acres of land had already been reclaimed from the sea, according to satellite image analysis by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), linked to the American think tank CSIS. It is important to note that these numbers and the purpose of the work are assessed by analysts from commercial satellite images, and the issue involves an old territorial dispute, with different versions from each country involved.
