China’s Statement on Its Construction in the South China Sea

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Credit Center for Strategic and International Studies, via Digital Globe

During a regularly scheduled news conference in Beijing on Thursday, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman was asked about the infrastructure China has been constructing around reefs, rocks and shoals in waters of the South China Sea that are claimed by other countries. The question arose in response to a series of satellite photographs released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based in Washington, depicting Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, which the Chinese call Meiji Reef in the Nansha Islands.