China is planning to build an "environmental monitoring station" on a hotly disputed reef at the center of an ongoing territorial row over the South China Sea, according to a top official who administers Beijing's regional island claims.
Sansha Communist Party Secretary Xiao Jie was quoted by the official Hainan Daily newspaper as saying the stations were being built on six islands and reefs, including Scarborough Shoal — a chain of rocks and reefs just 230 km (140 miles) from the Philippine coast.
According to the report, the other stations mentioned by Xiao were to be built on features in the Paracel chain of the South China Sea further to the North. China, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping claims to the Paracels.