China Completes First Phase of Man-Made Island on Antelope Reef

HONG KONG —

China has finished the first phase of construction on Antelope Reef, turning the feature in the disputed Paracel Islands into a man-made island, according to the Japan Times, which cited newly released satellite imagery.

The images, taken July 19, show the reclaimed outline of the reef for the first time. Barges and dredgers that had worked the site for at least six months have since left, the Japan Times reported.

China has not acknowledged that it is building a military base on Antelope Reef. State media in China have instead said the site will support civilian functions such as weather forecasting and scientific research, according to the Japan Times. But analysts cited by the outlet said the completed work will form part of what is expected to become China's largest military base in the South China Sea.

The Paracel Islands, along with most of the South China Sea, are claimed by China but disputed by other governments in the region. The waterway carries some of the world's busiest shipping traffic and sits close to Taiwan, the self-governing island Beijing claims as its own territory.

A Contested Waterway

The Japan Times reported that the completed construction reflects a South China Sea that has grown steadily more militarized, as China and the United States, along with its regional allies, compete for military advantages that could matter in any future conflict over Taiwan.

That competition has played out in other ways in the same waters. A US Navy guided-missile destroyer, the USS Benfold, lost power for four days last month after a generator failure while operating with the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group in the South China Sea, according to a Navy statement cited by CBS News. The outage knocked out plumbing, meals and air conditioning aboard the roughly 10,000-ton ship, though no crew members were injured, Commander Matthew Comer, a spokesman for the Navy's Seventh Fleet, said in the statement.

Contracted tugboats towed the Benfold to Subic Bay in the Philippines for repairs, which were completed by August 7, CBS News reported. The incident was not disclosed publicly for nearly a month.

Brad Martin, a former Navy captain now at the RAND Corporation, told the South China Morning Post that the breakdown was unusual and could reflect the toll of prolonged US naval operations elsewhere, including near Iran. "Failures such as this are a predictable outcome of issues such as deferred maintenance and training gaps," Martin said, adding that more details were needed to fully explain what happened.