THE Chinese navy recently managed to harvest 750kg of vegetables on sandy beaches in the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.
A navy garrison on the islands, which the Chinese calls Xisha Islands, apparently managed to achieve it on a "sand to earth" experimental field.
According to a report from the Chinese news agency Global Times, the navy said it used technology that could support communities on islands.
"The technology will be promoted on a large scale, which could solve the problem of military forces and civilians on islands lacking enough green vegetables," a navy officer said, according to the report.
It also said that the breakthrough counters international theories, including those in a 2016 arbitration, that islands in the South China Sea could not support communities of their own.
However, Vietnam has angrily reacted to this, saying China's vegetable cultivation claim on the islands, which it calls Hoang Sa Islands, were merely a ploy to strengthen Beijing's illegal claims on the islands.
Vietnamese maritime expert Vu Thanh Ca said the cultivation claim was to reinforce Beijing's claim that the structures it built there were proper islands with an exclusive economic zone and a continental shelf.
Ca, former director of the Vietnam Institute of Seas and Islands, dismissed this argument, saying it was just China's latest move in its efforts to "legitimise" its illegal claims in the South China Sea.
Ca said that with the latest move, China wants to prove that the geographical features in the islands meet the conditions of being able to "sustain human habitation or economic life."
If the features meet this condition, China could argue that they are proper islands.
According to the Vietnam Express, China seized a number of islands in the eastern part of the area by force in 1956, then seized the remaining islands in the archipelago by force from South Vietnam in 1974.
Ca noted that Article 121 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) states that "rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf."
He said that prior to the Permanent Court of Arbitration's (PCA) ruling on the South China Sea arbitration between the Philippines and China in 2016, which China lost, there have been several different interpretations of the phrase "cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own," as this determines the legal status of structures that are above water at high tide.
However, the PCA's 2016 ruling had put an end to these discussions.
Using this interpretation, the PCA also determined that structures in the also-disputed Spratly Islands had never sustained any stable community and economic activities.
In a note to the United Nations in late March, Vietnam clearly stated its standpoint on the matter regarding the islands.
Vietnam also asserted that China's declaration on its "historic rights" over the waters in the region exceeds UNCLOS regulations, so it is illegal and invalid.