China has begun building what appears to be an airstrip on a disputed island in the South China Sea, according to satellite images taken this month and shared with The Daily Beast.
One satellite image, taken by Planet Labs PBC on August 10 and analyzed by The Daily Beast, shows new construction on Triton Island, the westernmost island of the Paracel Islands near Vietnam. China has occupied the Paracel Islands since the 1970s, but Taiwan and Vietnam also lay claim to the archipelago.
Compared with a Planet Labs PBC satellite image of the same island in March, Beijing has been busy building up the island, which measures about 1 mile by several thousand feet across, according to maps.