In diplomat-speak it's called "establishing facts on the ground", a euphemism for pre-empting a contentious discussion by creating a fait accompli. Often, it's more metaphorical than real, but not so these days with the Chinese in the South China Sea.
According to the Philippines and Vietnamese governments China is now going to the lengths of building islands from no more than lumps of rock, moving sand onto reefs to add several new islands to the contested Spratly archipelago to bolster its territorial claims to the area. Since January China has been building three or four 20 to 40-acre islands.
The Philippines has argued at an international tribunal that China occupies only rocks and reefs and not true islands that might qualify for legal status as economic zones. It has warned that China’s “expansion agenda” threatens security and stability in the region, calling on all claimant states to halt construction activities. China accuses the Philippines of usurping its territorial rights, and also of construction work. It protested ten days ago at a group of Filipino and Vietnamese military getting together – and playing a football match – on one of the islands.
The worrying incremental racheting up of tensions follows a recent diplomatic row between China and Vietnam, over China's positioning of an oil rig near another disputed archipelago, the Paracel Islands, which has led to rammings at sea and anti-Chinese violence in Vietnam. China claims 90 per cent of the South China Sea, believed to have huge oil-and-gas deposits and rich fishery resources. A foothold on the islands is also important militarily as part of China's long-term power projection across the western Pacific. But Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims over the sea where some €4 trillion of ship-borne trade passes every year.
China needs to exercise restraint and avoid provocation, and should attempt instead to resolve disputed territorial claims through international institutions and mediation.