Washington: China has dramatically ramped up its land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea in the past five months, building artificial islands at an unprecedented pace to bolster its territorial claims in the area, US defense officials said Friday.
"China has expanded the acreage on the outposts it occupies by some four hundred times," said a defense official.
Beijing has reclaimed 2,000 acres (800 hectares) since January 2014 -- and 75 percent of the total this year alone, the defense official said.
The United States did not endorse land reclamation by any of the countries with territorial claims in the South China Sea, but "the pace and scale of China`s land reclamation in recent years dwarfs that of any other claimant," the official said.
The assessment came as the Pentagon issued its annual report to Congress on the state of China`s military, which included a special section on China`s dredging and building in the strategic South China Sea.
At four reclamation sites, China has moved from dredging operations to "infrastructure development" that could include harbors, communications and surveillance systems, logistics support, and "at least one airfield," the report said.
China has excavated deep channels that could accommodate larger ships to the outposts, it said.
The ultimate purpose of the effort remains unclear but analysts outside China say Beijing is "attempting to change facts on the ground by improving its defense insfrastructure in the South China Sea," the report said.
Unlike other countries making claims in the area, China at the moment does not have an airfield or "secure docking" at its outposts, it said.
The Pentagon report covered a period ending in December 2014 and it said China had reclaimed 500 acres in the disputed waters up to that point. But since then, China has conducted reclamation covering 1,500 acres, officials said.
