Antelope Reef: China’s New Runway in the Paracel Islands

China is building a runway of approximately 2,700 metres on the artificial island it has raised from Antelope Reef in the Paracel Islands, according to satellite imagery analysed by the private intelligence firm DeepDive. The findings were reported by Japanese daily the Asahi Shimbun on October 25, citing imagery collected in September. The firm identified a runway-like strip along the northern side of the reclaimed atoll, which could reach around 3,000 metres with overrun areas included, and a levelled area beside it which appears to be intended as an aircraft apron. By the firm’s assessment, a strip of that length could handle fighters, transport aircraft, aerial refuelling tankers, bombers and airborne early warning jets. Once complete, the base would be China’s most significant military expansion in the South China Sea in a decade, and the project highlights how far its pace of construction has accelerated since the first island airfields were built.

The findings follow reporting by Reuters on October 2 that imagery taken by Vantor on September 25 showed grading work, piles of gravel and concrete, and compaction cranes preparing the ground for a full-scale runway. Major dredging at the reef began in October 2025, and by March the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative estimated the reclaimed land at roughly 1,490 acres, close to the 1,504 acres of Mischief Reef and considerably larger than the 890 acres of Woody Island, until then the largest feature in the Paracels. Ben Lewis, founder of the open source platform PLATracker, told Reuters he expected a first landing by mid-2027 or possibly earlier, stating: “They’ve had 10 years to get faster at this.” Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery from October 20 shows an almost continuous ring of reclaimed land where a largely submerged reef stood in April 2025.

The comparison Lewis drew was with Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands, where a runway of around 3,000 metres was built in 2015 and civilian airliners made the first test landings in January 2016. Similar strips followed on Subi and Mischief Reefs, and those outposts were later fitted with hangars, radar and missile facilities. Antelope Reef lies around 300 kilometres from Sanya on Hainan Island, where China bases its nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines. Aircraft operating from it would considerably extend air cover over the approaches to Hainan, particularly for the PLA Navy’s three aircraft carriers, which have been operating further afield through 2026.

China already operates fighter jets from a runway of around 2,700 metres on Woody Island, roughly 90 kilometres away, and Reuters reported in August that new installations on nearby Yagong Island could be an early warning radar site. The Chinese Foreign Ministry stated in March that the Paracels were China’s inherent territory, while state media have described Antelope as serving weather forecasting and scientific research. Vietnam, which calls the feature Hai Sam Reef and claims the Paracels along with Taiwan, has protested twice this year, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pham Thu Hang calling such activities “completely illegal and null and void” on August 28. Lewis noted that he had yet to see signs of excavation for the ammunition and fuel storage which a base of this scale would require.