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MANILA, Philippines<\/span><\/span><\/strong>\u2014In a span of one year, China has managed to reclaim hectares of water in Mabini Reef (Johnson South Reef) in the West Philippine Sea and is likely underway in building a military airstrip. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) earlier released several photos of Mabini Reef in the Kalayaan Island Group showing the reclamation work China has done. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The first photo, taken March 13, 2012, shows an empty expanse of sea. By February 28, 2013, a concrete structure was already built on the reef with what appears to be a helicopter landing pad. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The latest photograph on March 11, 2014, shows the entire expanse of water that has been reclaimed making it look like a small island. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Asked whether the Chinese structure on the Mabini reef are civilian or military in nature, DFA spokesman Charles Jose said it will likely serve a military purpose. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cJudging from the other structures put up by China in the South China Sea we can safely presume they are for military purposes, like the structure it put up in Mischief Reef, it\u2019s a military garrison,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cJudging by the size of the reclamation work they are doing there, we can come up with several possibilities and one of them is they are constructing an airstrip, that\u2019s one of several possibilities,\u201d Jose said. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Jose said the size of the reclaimed land is already \u201chectares\u201d in size from the single concrete structure seen in 2013. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThese actions are considered destabilizing and in violation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) and international law,\u201d Jose said. \u2014 (by Matikas Santos, Inq.net) <\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Indisputable sovereignty\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhatever construction China carries out in the Chigua Reef (Mabini Reef) is completely within China\u2019s sovereignty,\u201d Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a recent press conference. <\/span>\u201cChina has indisputable sovereignty over Nansha Islands (Spratly Islands) including Chigua Reef and the contiguous waters,\u201d Hua added. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MANILA, Philippines\u2014In a span of one year, China has managed to reclaim hectares of water in Mabini Reef (Johnson South Reef) in the West Philippine Sea and is likely underway in building a military airstrip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,70],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}