Vietnam protests as China’s Paracels build-up escalates at Antelope Reef

Satellite images suggest accelerated dredging at the disputed South China Sea reef, sparking formal complaint from Hanoi

Hanoi has protested to Beijing over Chinese land-reclamation activities in the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, following reports of accelerated dredging and landfill operations at Antelope Reef.

“Vietnam resolutely opposes such activities, makes representations and affirms its position on this matter,” Vietnamese foreign ministry spokeswoman Pham Thu Hang said on Saturday.

She said Hanoi had “ample historical evidence and legal grounds” to assert sovereignty over the Paracel Islands, including Antelope Reef, in accordance with international law.

She added that any foreign activities in the waters without Vietnam’s permission were “completely illegal and invalid”.

It was unclear when the protest was lodged, but last week Chinese and Vietnamese foreign, security and defence ministers agreed in Hanoi to “properly” address maritime disputes.

The foreign ministry in Beijing has been contacted for comment.

China took full control of the Paracels – known as the Xisha Islands in China and the Hoang Sa Islands in Vietnam – in 1974 after a naval battle with South Vietnam, which collapsed the following year when forces from its northern neighbour captured Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war.

Antelope Reef is strategically located about 300km (186 miles) from Sanya, a port on the southernmost tip of the Chinese island of Hainan and about 400km from Da Nang on the Vietnamese coast.

Sanya is also a major base for Chinese naval and air forces overseeing the South China Sea.

Citing satellite imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites, American news magazine Newsweek reported in early January that new sand dredging began at Antelope Reef – known as Lingyang Jiao in China and Da Hai Sam in Vietnam – around October last year.

Using recent commercial satellite imagery from US-based Vantor, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative under the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies said on Thursday that roughly 603 hectares (1,490 acres) of land had been reclaimed at Antelope Reef.

The initiative said the scale was “striking” compared with China’s other features in the Paracels, including Woody Island, China’s administrative hub for the South China Sea, which is only around 360 hectares.

“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, equalling or even surpassing the size of Mischief Reef in the Spratlys,” the initiative said.

Covering roughly 608 hectares, Mischief Reef is China’s largest artificial island in the South China Sea and one of the “big three” outposts in the disputed Spratlys where China has built long runways and installed radar and missile systems.

The initiative said that if Antelope Reef was developed into a military facility comparable to China’s other major outposts, it could “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”.

The plans for Antelope Reef remain unclear. However, the development may be China’s response to Vietnam’s intensifying reclamation activities in the Spratly Islands, which are also claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. China refers to the archipelago as the Nansha Islands.

“While this may not significantly change the strategic picture in the South China Sea, Beijing is certainly signalling 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,” the initiative said.

According to a report by the Beijing-based South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative in June last year, Hanoi had reclaimed 850 hectares of new land on 11 features in the Spratlys since 2021.

It has also built piers, runways, embankments and temporary landing pads on the new features that could be used to deploy anti-ship artillery or missile systems.

By Laura Zhou – The South China Mornig Post – March 22, 2026