Beijing’s Double Standards in the South China Sea

Taking a lesson out of China’s playbook, Vietnam is building militarized islands.

Philippine soldiers on an island in the South China Sea September 22, 2025, 6:59 AM Comment icon View Comments ( )

Vietnam’s dramatic expansion of artificial land on the 21 reefs, shoals, and other features that it occupies in the Spratly Islands of the South China Sea will likely surpass the extent of China’s own land reclamation in the coming years. Such is the conclusion of a recent bombshell report from the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), a Washington-based think tank that has been monitoring Hanoi’s dredging and landfill activities.

As of March, the think tank observed, Vietnam had created roughly 70 percent as much artificia

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