A Chinese soldier poses for a photograph with a greenhouse serving as a background in the disputed Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea. SCREEN GRAB FROM SINA.COM.CN
A Chinese website has posted photographs of Fiery Cross Reef (Kagitingan Reef) in the disputed South China Sea, one of the reefs controlled by China with ongoing reclamation activities.
Sina, a Chinese online media company, published the photos on June 18. It came as a slideshow of 17 photos with the title: “Gratifying results on China’s Yongshu’s Reef: Building vegetable greenhouses and growing fruit trees.”
Yongshu is the Chinese name of Fiery Cross Reef.
In one photo, a Chinese soldier in battle uniform poses with a greenhouse on the background.
Other photos showed vegetables being watered, as well as pigs in a pen and a dog.
The photos had no captions and there was no mention of who took them and when were they taken. Some of the photos appeared to have been taken from other websites.
Fiery Cross is one of the seven reefs in the Spratlys with ongoing construction activities by China, which has been turning the reefs into artificial islands.
Early this week, China said some of its reclamation activities in the Spratlys would soon be finished but did not identify on which reefs.
The photos did not show the dredgers used for reclamation and the reef’s airstrip shown on satellite images.
China has made rapid progress in the disputed maritime superhighway. US said last month that China’s reclamation activities totaled about 2,000 acres.
China claims most parts of the resource-rich South China Sea, which is also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.
The construction of artificial islands, China said, would help in maritime search and rescue, disaster prevention and mitigation, marine scientific research, meteorological observation, ecological environment conservation, navigation safety as well as fishery production service.
Photos are from sina.com.cn.