Recently Yahoo new on-line picked up the following:
South China Sea: Beijing opens hardware store on disputed
Woody Island
South China Morning Post
Sat, August 3, 2024 at 2:30 a.m. PDT·3 min read
China has opened a hardware store on a disputed South China Sea island, according to the local government, as Beijing ramps up efforts to expand civilian facilities and cement claims in the strategically important waterway.
Covering an area of about 100 square metres (1,076 square feet), the Xinyi Hardware Store is located on Woody Island in the Paracel Islands, a contested archipelago known in Chinese as the Xisha Islands and in Vietnamese as the Hoang Sa Islands.
The store, situated next to the cargo terminal of the Sansha Yongxing Airport, opened for business on Thursday, according to the government of Sansha city, which oversees the Paracels as well as the Macclesfield Bank and the Spratly Islands - another disputed archipelago known as the Nansha Islands in Chinese.
According to the Sansha government, the store provides "several thousand" products, including electrical items, fire safety equipment, water pipes, door and window accessories and paint.
Located about 300km (186 miles) from the southern island province of Hainan, Woody Island, known as Yongxing Island in China, is the largest outcrop among the 30 or so islands that make up the Paracels. The archipelago is controlled by Beijing but also claimed by Taipei and Hanoi.
To assert its claims to the resource-rich waters, Beijing in 2012 announced the establishment of Sansha city on Woody Island to administer the disputed South China Sea islands and features.
Since then, Beijing has steadily stepped up efforts to expand both civilian and military facilities on the island, which Chinese media said would become "an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the South China Sea".
In 2017, an Israeli satellite imagery company captured a photo of HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island. Beijing has not confirmed the deployment.
The island has a post office, banks, a meteorological observatory, schools, a library, parks, hospitals and power plants.
It is also home to a civil-military airport on the island, which features a 3,000-metre take-off runway that can accommodate a fully loaded Boeing 737 airliner, and a 5,000-tonne wharf.
According to the latest census, the island had a population of 2,333 as of November 2020.
Infrastructure construction on Woody Island has often sparked protest from rival claimants, particularly Vietnam.
A hotpot restaurant opened on Woody Island in April of last year in a move that drew Hanoi's ire. The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at the time that the country was "working to ensure its sovereignty and jurisdiction over the waters to protect its legitimate rights".
Translation
據當地政府稱，中國在南海一個有爭議的島嶼上開設了一家五金店，北京方面加大力度擴建民用設施，並鞏固對這條具有重要戰略意義的水道的主權主張。
Xinyi 五金店佔地約 100 平方公尺（1,076 平方英尺），它位於 Paracel Islands 群島的永興島上, 是一個有爭議的群島，它中文稱為西沙羣島，越南語稱為黃沙群島。
據負責監管Paracels群島、馬格斯菲爾德淺灘和 Spratly 群島 - 另一個有爭議的群島，中文稱為南沙群島的三沙市政府稱，這家商店位於三沙永興機場貨運航站樓旁，於週四開業。
根據三沙市政府介紹，該商店提供「數千種」產品，包括電器、消防安全設備、水管、門窗配件和油漆。
負責島上民用服務的三沙天勤服務管理公司副經理 Wang Hailong 表示，該公司花了大約兩個月的時間進行市場調查，「了解島上及附近的軍民需要什麼樣的物件」 。
Woody Island 距離中國南部島嶼的海南省約 300 公里（186 英里），在中國被稱為永興島，是Paracel 群島 30 多個島嶼中最大的露出地面的岩石。群島由北京控制，但台北和河內也聲稱擁有主權。
為了維護對這資源豐富水域的主權，北京於 2012 年宣佈在永興島上設立三沙市，以管理有爭議的南中國海島嶼和地物。
此後，北京穩步加大力度擴建島上的民用和軍事設施，中國媒體稱其將成為「南中國海一艘不沉的航空母艦」。
2017年，以色列一家衛星影像公司在永興島上拍攝了HQ-9 地對空飛彈的照片。北京尚未證實這項部署。
島上有郵局、銀行、氣像台、學校、圖書館、公園、醫院和發電廠。
島上還有軍民機場，擁有可起降滿載波音737客機的 3,000 公尺起飛跑道和 5,000 噸級碼頭。
根據最新的人口普查，截至 2020 年 11 月，該島人口為 2,333 人。
永興島的基礎建設經常引發敵對聲索國的抗議，尤其是越南。
去年四月，一家火鍋店在永興島上開業，此舉引起了河內的憤怒。越南外交部當時表示，該國「正在努力確保對該海域的主權和管轄權，以保護其合法權利」。
So,
China has opened a hardware store on a
disputed South China Sea Island to ramp up efforts to consolidate claims in this
strategically important waterway. I am wondering what could Vietnam do in response
to the situation.
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