Since October 2025, China has been transforming Antelope Reef, once one of its smallest outposts in the South China Sea's Paracel Islands, into what satellite data now suggests may become its largest artificial island anywhere in the region. By March 2026, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies had measured roughly 1,490 acres of reclaimed land at the reef, nearly matching the 1,504 acres of Mischief Reef, currently China's largest feature in the South China Sea. The construction represents Beijing's first significant island-building activity since 2017, and it has prompted formal protests from Vietnam, concern in Manila, and a pointed lack of attention from an international community preoccupied elsewhere.
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