On February 19, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun presided over a regular press conference. A reporter asked that China has always claimed that the cypress reef in the Nansha Islands is Chinese territory, but it has been occupied by Vietnam since the 1980s. According to a study by the Ministry of Natural Resources of China, Vietnam has expanded the cypress reef by 10 times through land reclamation, which has been the case since 2022. At the same time, Vietnam has dredged a 299-meter-wide waterway, located at the western end of Cypress Reef, which is wide enough to allow large ships such as warships to berth. Is China's possibility of controlling cypress reefs becoming smaller and smaller?
Guo Jiakun said that the Nansha Islands are China's inherent territory and the Bai Reef is part of the Nansha Islands. China has always opposed the relevant countries' construction activities on the illegally occupied islands and reefs.
(CCTV reporter Shen Yang)
