Construction of a runway on Antelope Reef is well underway, and analysts estimate it could be completed by mid-2027, expanding China’s military reach in the disputed South China Sea. A completed base would mark the country’s most significant military expansion there in a decade, Reuters reported.
Satellite images reviewed by Reuters show grading work, gravel piles, concrete and compaction cranes. Images taken on September 25 by commercial provider Vantor also show a fully loaded gravel barge heading to a newly built wharf. Construction is underway on a reef in the Paracel Islands, claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan.
The Base Taking Shape
Ben Lewis, founder of the open-source data platform PLATracker, said workers could pave the runway in the first half of 2027, with a first landing by mid-2027 or possibly earlier. Lewis compared the work with a 3-km (3,280-yard) runway built on a reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in 2015. “They’ve had 10 years to get faster at this,” he said.
Vantor imagery analysts and open-source intelligence tracker Damien Symon, who first highlighted dredging at the reef in early January, described the cranes as equipment used to compact reclaimed or loose earth into foundations before paving. The images document construction work, but the facility’s eventual operational capacity remains a matter of analysis.
Lewis said he hadn’t seen signs of excavation for possible ammunition and fuel storage, which a base of this scale would need. China hasn’t acknowledged construction of a new military base. State media have said Antelope will serve civilian needs, including weather forecasting and maritime and scientific research.
China’s defence ministry didn’t immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The source doesn’t report a Chinese statement confirming military use of the site.
Reach and Regional Control
Analysts say a future base in the northern South China Sea would extend deployments by a wide range of Chinese naval ships and military aircraft. It would also help protect the approaches to Hainan Island, where China keeps its nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines.
The waterway has become an increasingly militarized arena of competition between Beijing and the United States and its allies over Taiwan. According to the report, Antelope construction would strengthen Beijing’s military control in that contested area.
Reuters reported in late August that observers had sighted new installations on a smaller islet near Antelope. Analysts haven’t definitively determined the likely function of the three-pronged construction on Yagong Island.
Claims and Occupation
China, Vietnam and Taiwan all claim the entire Paracel Islands. China drove out the forces of then-South Vietnam from bases in the Paracels in a brief battle in 1974 and has occupied the islands ever since over Hanoi’s objections. The Vietnamese foreign ministry and Taiwan’s defence and foreign ministries didn’t immediately respond to Reuters’ questions.
The runway project also comes as China confirmed the creation of a new joint military support facility in neighbouring Laos, which could deepen Beijing’s presence in Southeast Asia. The report gives no financial figures for the Antelope construction or the Laos facility, and identifies no commercial contract or profit tied to either project. There’s no ambiguity in the immediate evidence at Antelope: earth being compacted, a wharf receiving gravel, and a runway taking shape for projected military use.