south china sea

China’s new islands in the South China Sea

April 7, 2017

Back in 2015 we had a look at the islands that China has been building in the South China Sea. Last year we took another look at Fiery Cross Reef. Many of the islands have grown significantly since then.

Speed in milliseconds per image:
Fiery Cross Reef.

Speed in milliseconds per image:
Cuarteron Reef.

Speed in milliseconds per image:
Subi Reef.

Speed in milliseconds per image:
Gaven Reef.

Speed in milliseconds per image:
Hughes Reef.

Speed in milliseconds per image:
Johnson South Reef.

Speed in milliseconds per image:
Mischief Reef.

Speed in milliseconds per image:
North Danger Reef.

Speed in milliseconds per image:
Itu Aba Island – expanded harbour

Speed in milliseconds per image:
London Reefs- Central Reef. The island to the top right appears to have grown slightly.

To find the above locations in Google Earth download this KML file.

Taiwan wants Google to censor satellite imagery

September 26, 2016

A recent story in the news says that Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has asked Google to blur imagery of some military structures on Itu Aba Island (also known as Taiping Island) in the South China Sea.

The South China Sea is a hotly contested area with several countries, most notabley China, building structures on the reefs of the Spratleys. We had a look at the progress last year and had a look at the latest imagery of Fiery Cross Reef in June this year.

As we have discussed before, censoring satellite imagery is more difficult than censoring other data. A number of countries censor aerial data, mapping data and 3D imagery and because those are often gathered within the countries in question, Google must comply with local laws. But satellite imagery is more difficult to censor. I has been done. It is illegal in the US to publish high resolution imagery of Israel, and Google is a US company so Israel appears in relatively low resolution in Google Maps and Google Earth. Also, imagery updates were stopped for Iraq, Afghanistan, the Ukraine and Syria although we do not know exactly how that was accomplished.

Back to this particular case, if the story is correct and if that was the only facility that Taiwan asked Google to censor, then it would appear they made a serious error. The result has been that many news outlets have published the imagery and it is now not only practically impossible to get rid of all those images, but it has become an object of attention. In addition, Google will be very unlikely to agree to censor it unless legal pressure can be brought to bear. If they were to censor it, a lot of people will notice, and it will become another news story, and then a lot of other countries will want their censorship requests to be honoured as well.

Another question would be who Taiwan wishes to hide the imagery from. Even if Google removed the image, it could still be purchased from the supplier Digital Globe, or imagery of the location could be ordered from various other commercial suppliers. A number of states also have their own spy satellites and the countries most interested in the region could probably capture aerial imagery of it if they wished.

The image that Taiwan wants censored is dated July 8th, 2016 and can only be seen in the default layer as it has not yet (as of this writing) been put in historical imagery.

The military structure in question can be seen below:

We have also created an animation showing that the airport was built since 2006 and the harbour is also being expanded.

Speed in milliseconds per image:

Fiery Cross Reef

June 7, 2016

We recently mentioned that we had noted that the disputed islands in the South China sea had not received any satellite imagery updates for over a year. It is an area of particular interest as China is building a number of artificial islands there as we have previously shown you.

We have noticed that in the most recent imagery update, Google has finally added an image of one of the artificial islands, Fiery Cross Reef, allowing us to see how much progress has been made. There are actually two new images, one from January 8th, 2016 and one from May 1st, 2016.

Here is an animation of the artificial island being built:

Speed in milliseconds per image:

You can adjust the speed of the animation by dragging the slider.

The imagery is quite beautiful and worth seeing in higher resolution than our animations allow, so we made it into a video. It was remarkably easy to do. We first created this Google Earth Tour then used Google Earth Pro’s built in Movie Maker to record the tour. We then uploaded the file to YouTube. You can play it full screen and in high resolution. There is no sound.

China building islands in the Spratlys

June 1, 2015

In the past we have looked at an island that doesn’t exist, islands being formed, islands combining to form a bigger island and a disappearing islet. Today we are looking at how China is turning reefs into islands.

A couple of months ago there was a story about China building an Airport and other military installations in the Spratley Islands. However, at the time, the relevant satellite imagery was not available in Google Earth. In April, Google added imagery for most of the Spratley islands, but not the most interesting one – Fiery Cross Reef. However, Google did add it during May, so now we can have a look at it.

For more on the story and detailed analysis of what can be seen in the imagery see this story, which covers activity throughout the Spratley islands, and this one that focuses on the airport on Fiery Cross Reef.

Fiery Cross Reef – an airport and harbour being constructed.

Johnson South Reef – buildings and harbour being constructed.

Hughes Reef – buildings and harbour being constructed.

Gaven Reef – buildings and harbour being constructed.

Cuarteron Reef – buildings and harbour being constructed.

Mischief Reef – land reclamation just starting.

Subi Reef – land reclamation just starting.

We highly recommend looking at the locations in Google Earth as there is plenty to see. To find them, download this KML file.

Also interesting is that several of the images have too much red, which looks especially bad where there is land. We believe this is colour correction gone wrong as a result of the strong blues and greens of the ocean.