Taiwan is making progress on its construction of a harbour on Taiping Island in the Spratly Islands, according to satellite imagery provided by Airbus Defence and Space and analysed by IHS Jane's .
The 6 August imagery shows land reclamation on the southwest tip of the island, which is also known as Itu Aba.
Airbus Defence and Space satellite imagery dated 10 March and 18 April showed the building of a breakwater off the island's southwest corner that may be one element of the wharf. Since April the section behind the breakwater has been backfilled to create new land. At least four cranes are present on the new land, along with other construction vehicles.
A new breakwater has also been created and a channel dredged to the east of the new land. The 6 August imagery shows two roll-on/roll-off transport barges and at least one other vessel alongside in the channel. A blue-roofed support structure has also been built inland next to solar panels that were installed in 2012.
Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration (CGA) carried out a feasibility study for the construction of a wharf capable of handling 2,000-tonne frigates in 2013. The government has set aside USD110.24 million for the project, which is expected to be completed in 2015.
Taiping Island also has a 1,150 m-long and 30 m-wide runway, which was completed in early 2008. The CGA announced in 2013 that the Ministry of National Defence was considering expanding the runway, but no information has been released since then and satellite imagery shows no construction under way.
COMMENT
Taiwan's renewed interest in Taiping is in line with other countries that occupy features in the Spratly islands; all appear to be reinforcing their claims to the disputed islands by establishing larger footprints on the territories they hold.
In April the Republic of China Marine Corps conducted an amphibious landing drill on Taiping: its largest maritime drill in the Spratlys to date. Members of the Legislative Committee on Foreign Affairs and National Defense also recently called on the Ministry of National Defence (MND) to deploy the MIM-72J Sea Chaparral surface-to-air missiles (SAM) that it is withdrawing from naval service to replace existing SAM batteries on Taiping.
However, the MND has said it has not decided what to do with the Chaparral missiles.
The developments on Taiping also come as Taiwan's president has clarified the island's interpretation of the famous 9-dash-line, which first appeared on a Republic of China (RoC) map in 1947 and encompasses nearly the whole of the South China Sea.
It is also the basis of China's claims, but Beijing has refused to clarify whether the dashed line is a territorial boundary, a claim to all land features inside it, or merely a sphere of influence.
However, at a recent exhibition in Taipei of some of the archives that RoC leader Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (KMT) took to Taiwan when they fled to the island in 1949, President Ma Ying-jeou said that the 1947 map and claim was limited to islands and 3 to 12 n miles of their adjacent waters. There were "no other so-called claims to sea regions", he said.
I've read about the hypothesis that the motivation for the recent island building or reinforcement by China is a sign of shift in policy by China to claim EEZ around those "islands", combined by with the dispatch of the spy ship to Hawaii (tacit acceptance of American EEZ policy) are meant to separate the economy value of EEZ from American concern about freedom of navigation.
