{"id":11463,"date":"2025-08-23T12:10:49","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T06:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=11463"},"modified":"2025-08-25T17:45:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T12:15:18","slug":"spratly-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/spratly-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"Spratly Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Spratly Islands Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vietnam has significantly expanded island-building work in areas it claims in the Spratly Islands chain of the disputed South China Sea and will match and likely surpass the scale of such activity there by China, a U.S. think tank reported recently.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Spratly Islands<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are a large group of <\/span><b>reefs, shoals, atolls, and small islets <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in the <\/span><b>South China Sea <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the Pacific Ocean.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are located <\/span><b>north of insular Malaysia <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and are roughly <\/span><b>midway between Vietnam and the Philippines.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are spread out over a vast area of ocean measuring some 158,000 square miles (409,000 square km).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Climate: Tropical<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>A great number of them are submerged.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of the 12 main naturally occurring islets, the <\/span><b>largest <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is the 90-acre (36-hectare) <\/span><b>Itu Aba.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Another<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, called <\/span><b>Spratly Island or Storm Island<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, measures 900 by 1,500 feet (275 by 450 metres).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Turtles and seabirds<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are the <\/span><b>only wildlife <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in these islands. There is n<\/span><b>o permanent human habitation.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>History<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">France held them between 1933 and 1939.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>During World War II Japan occupied<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the archipelago and developed it as a submarine base.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>After the war the Chinese Nationalist government established a garrison on Itu Aba,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which the Nationalists maintained after their exile to Taiwan in 1949.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When <\/span><b>Japan renounced its claim to the islands in 1951,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Taiwan, mainland China, and Vietnam all declared themselves the rightful owners, and the Philippines added a claim based on proximity in 1955.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Claims<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are <\/span><b>claimed in their entirety by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, while portions are claimed by Malaysia and the Philippines.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although Brunei did not claim any territory in the Spratlys, it claims an exclusive economic zone over this area that contained a Spratly reef.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/china\/vietnam-island-building-spratlys-may-soon-surpass-chinas-report-says-2025-08-22\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">REUT<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Spratly Islands consist of more than 100 small islands or reefs in the South China Sea. Read more about Spratly Islands, Dispute, History, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":60733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2318],"class_list":{"0":"post-11463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-spratly-islands","9":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}