China's illegal "mega-construction site" at Subi Reef.

Since the beginning of 2014, China has been deploying ships and modern machinery to extensively and illegally reclaim and build on Xu Bi Reef, part of Vietnam's Truong Sa (Spratly) Islands, after forcibly occupying it in early 1988.

Unforgettable memories

Colonel Hoang Ngoc Thai, Head of the Department of Party and Political Work at the Naval Academy, vividly remembers the beginning of 1988. At that time, he held the rank of captain and was a lecturer in the Sociology Department. He was deployed by the Navy to participate in the CQ-88 campaign to defend submerged islands in the Truong Sa archipelago, along with hundreds of officers and students from the academy. “On the morning of February 18, 1988, nine officers and soldiers from the Naval Academy disembarked at Chau Vien from the HQ-614 ship, carrying the national flag, personal weapons, tools for planting the flag and exploring the depth, and preparing to build houses. After planting the flag, strong northeast winds and high tides caused the ship's anchor to drift, and the tide reached neck-deep. Even though it was dark, the ship had to keep its engines running around the beach to get the men out. At midnight, the naval command ordered that we had to reach Chau Vien by the next morning. However, four Chinese warships blocked our way, turning their cannons to threaten us, preventing us from entering, and China dropped targets on the beach,” Colonel Thai recalled.

As the commander of the task force aboard the HQ-614 at that time, Colonel Nguyen Van Dan, former Deputy Chief of Staff of the 4th Naval Region (now the 4th Naval Region Command), clearly stated: “Our policy was to occupy the large, strategically important reefs first, and only then deploy to smaller ones. Xu Bi at that time could not compare to Chau Vien, Chu Thap, Da Dong, Da Tay, and Da Lon, so we only conducted reconnaissance, marked, and prepared for subsequent occupation.” But from around the end of January and beginning of February 1988, China illegally occupied Xu Bi, followed by many other reefs. “When the Chinese side illegally occupied them, we immediately thought that later they would mobilize modern equipment to dredge the lake within the reef to create a deep-water port, anchoring cruisers, creating an overwhelming advantage over the countries also occupying the surrounding reefs,” Colonel Dan said.

China's illegal "massive construction site" at Subi Reef.

China's illegal "massive construction site" at Subi Reef.

China's illegal "massive construction site" at Subi Reef.

China's illegal "massive construction site" at Subi Reef.

Cranes and gunboats

Fishermen in Phu Quy island district (Binh Thuan province), familiar with the Truong Sa fishing grounds for many years, say that among the reefs that China has forcibly occupied from Vietnam and is extensively building illegally since the beginning of 2014, Xu Bi is one of three points (Xu Bi, Chu Thap, Chau Vien) where the inner lakebed is being dredged and a closed harbor is being built for anchorage and logistical services for large ships.

Xu Bi Reef is located midway along the route of Vietnamese Navy ships traveling from Song Tu Tay Island to Da Thi Island, approximately 35 nautical miles from Song Tu Tay and 40 nautical miles from Da Thi. In mid-May 2015, during a trip to the Spratly Islands, our ship approached Xu Bi Reef and observed that the reef was surrounded by concrete breakwaters; the entrance to the lake was on the east side, where four large dredging vessels used specialized suction systems to push sand and rocks from the lakebed onto the reef through pipes with a diameter of nearly 2 meters; next to three fixed and mobile crane systems on the island were smaller cranes, along with dozens of excavators serving a constant stream of trucks. To the north of Xu Bi Reef, nearly 10 large transport ships, tugboats, and even a giant cargo ship with four large cranes were concentrated...

An officer on board said that at the southern and northern ends of Xu Bi Shoal, the Chinese side had two iron ships anchored as outer perimeter guards, brightly lit at night for surveillance. Upon detecting Vietnamese ships approaching, China dispatched the landing transport ship 996, equipped with six 37 mm cannons, to drive them away. On the afternoon of May 10th, when a Vietnamese ship was about 7 km (3.7 nautical miles) from Xu Bi, the Chinese ship 996 immediately rushed out to threaten it.

With its rapid pace, large-scale construction, and the deployment of amphibious transport ships (with a capacity of 250 soldiers, 10 tanks, and 4 LCVP landing craft) and densely packed gunboats on deck, China is clearly not reclaiming these reefs to "better fulfill its international obligations in search and rescue and other community services," as its authorities falsely claim.

According to Thanh Nien newspaper