South China Sea hub ‘urgent’
March 27, 2014 Category Economic hubs, Logistics
Yan Kai, Deputy Director of the China Ship Scientific Research Center affiliated with the China Shipbuilding Industry Corp, said a major transport hub needs to be built in the South China Sea, which lacks sufficient infrastructure. The absence of a hub is hindering economic development in the region. China’s Nansha Islands are located in the South China Sea more than 1,000 km from the mainland and have vast oil and natural gas reserves. Yan pointed out that limited infrastructure has made it “extremely difficult” for people to live and work in the South China Sea area. There is only one military airport and one port on Yongxing island, which is the largest island in the South China Sea at 2 million square km and administered by Sansha in Hainan province. Sansha, China’s youngest and southernmost city in Hainan province, was established in 2012 to govern more than 200 small islands, sand banks and reefs in the Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha islands. Yongxing island, which is part of the Xisha islands, has about 1,000 residents and a military garrison. But Li Guoqiang, Deputy Director of the Center for Chinese Borderland History and Geography at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said such infrastructure should be built on the larger Hainan island and not on more remote small islands. “The ecological environment in the region is so vulnerable that we cannot sacrifice it for economic interests,” he said.
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