When President Xi Jinping of China visited President Barack Obama at the White House in September last year, he startled many with reassuring words about his intensions for the Spratly Islands, a contested area where the Chinese government has been piling dredged sand and concrete atop reefs for the past few years and building housing and runways on them. "China dose not intend to pursue militarization," Xi said, referring to the area as the Nansha Islands, a Chinese name for what most of the rest of the world calls the Spratlys in the South China Sea. The most recent satellite photographs, however, indicated a different plan.

Photos show China militarizing Spratly islands. (2016, August 10). Philippine Daily Inquirer, pp. A1, A13.