South China Sea: Beijing opens hardware store on disputed Woody Island

The new shop in the Paracel Islands is part of China’s push to expand civilian facilities and cement territorial claims in contested waters

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The hardware shop is the latest civilian amenity to open on Woody Island, which is also home to a post office, banks, schools, a library, parks, hospitals and power plants. Photo: Handout

Published: 4:11pm, 3 Aug 2024Updated: 7:35pm, 3 Aug 2024

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.

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Wang Hailong, deputy manager of Sansha Tianqin Service Management, which is in charge of civilian services on the island, said the company spent about two months on market research “to understand what kind of hardware is needed by soldiers and civilians on the island and nearby”.

Located about 300km (186 miles) from the southern Chinese 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.