China is rebuilding World War II airstrip on Pacific atoll, satellite photo showsPublished at 16:54 GMT
thomas copland
BBC Verify Live Journalist
Satellite photos show that a World War II-era airstrip is being rebuilt by a Chinese company on a South Pacific atoll about 400 miles (600 kilometers) from the U.S. territory of Guam.
The development of a private airstrip on Wolaei Island in the Federated States of Micronesia is expected to be completed in the coming weeks and is aimed at expanding transportation links for the island's 1,000 residents.
The airstrip was first built by Imperial Japan in the mid-1940s, but was destroyed by American bombers during the war, according to the Habele Institute, a U.S.-based Micronesian educational organization.
After being restored by the United States in the 1970s, it fell into disrepair, but is now being rebuilt by China's Shandong Hengyue Municipal Engineering Company.
Micronesia has a long-standing security and economic partnership with the United States, which recently announced a $2 billion military infrastructure investment on the nearby main island of Yap.
But experts told BBC Verify that the runway project “represents a major entry” to increase “China's presence and influence”.
“Perhaps companies with ties to the Chinese state are taking losses on the airstrip to gain a foothold in the region,” said Cleo Pascal, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who traveled for four days on a cargo ship to attend the project's groundbreaking ceremony in May.
