China is building a school on a remote island in the South China Sea to serve the children of military personnel and others, expanding the rugged outpost it created two years ago to strengthen claims to disputed waters and islands.
China established the settlement of Sansha (三沙) — which Beijing designates a “city” and has a permanent population of 1,443 — on tiny Woody Island (Yongxing Island, 永興島) to administer hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of water where China wants to strengthen its control over potentially oil-rich islands that are also claimed by other Asian nations.
Vietnam, the Philippines and the US criticized Beijing for establishing Sansha, saying it risked escalating regional tensions.
The island is about 350km south of China’s southernmost province, in the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which are also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.
The Sansha government said in a statement on its Web site that construction on the school started on Saturday and was expected to take 18 months.
It said there were about 40 children of school age on Yongxing Island, and the school could also educate the children of police, army personnel and civilians stationed on the islands, some of whom had to stay with grandparents in far-off hometowns.
When China created Sansha in July 2012, the outpost had a post office, bank, supermarket, hospital and a population of about 1,000.
By December last year, it had a permanent population of 1,443, which can sometimes swell by 2,000, according to the Sansha government.
Now it has an airport, hotel, library and five main roads, mobile phone service coverage and a 24-hour satellite TV station.
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