According to a website, there are more than 600,000 islands in the world, but this data is neither 100 percent accurate nor set in stone. Partly, this is due to the complete number of Islands in the world and the constant emergence of new islands due to natural processes like volcanic eruptions or the movement of tectonic plates. Now Wood Island is news in the world.
Woody Island, also called Yongxing Island (‘Eternal Prosperity Island’) by China and Taiwan and Phú Lâm Island (Vietnamese: Đảo Phú Lâm) by Vietnam (and formerly French: Île Boisée, lit. ’Wooded Island’ by French Indochina), is the largest of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea (SCS), with an area of 2.1 square kilometres. The Chinese Qing Dynasty, France (on behalf of Annam), Japan, and the Republic of China had all established a presence on the island at various points of time in history. Fishing activities surrounding the island in the South China Sea region have been documented (wikiwand.com/en/Woody_Island). Now a few lines from the online newspaper South China Morning Post, August 3, 2024, I am presenting for the benefit of readers as Woody Island is a news. China has opened a hardware store on a disputed South China Sea Island. Spreading to an area of about 1,076 square feet, the Xinyi Hardware Store is located on Woody Island in the Paracel Islands. The store is situated next to the cargo terminal of the Sansha Yongxing Airport. It provides “several thousand” products, including electrical items, fire safety equipment, water pipes, door and window accessories, and paint. Wang Hailong, deputy manager of Sansha Tianqin Service Management, which is in charge of civilian services on the island, said the company spent about two months on market research “to understand what kind of hardware is needed by soldiers and civilians on the island and nearby”. Located about 300 kilometres from the Southern Chinese Island province of Hainan, Woody Island – known as Yongxing Island in China – is the largest outcrop among the 30 or so islands that make up the Paracels. In 2017, an Israeli satellite imagery company captured a photo of HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island. Beijing did not confirm the deployment. It is pertinent to mention that the Island has a post office, banks, a meteorological observatory, schools, a library, parks, hospitals, and power plants. It is also home to a civil-military airport, which features a 3,000-metre take-off runway that can accommodate a fully loaded Boeing 737 airliner and a 5,000-tonne wharf. Also, as per the news item, the Island had a population of 2,333 as of November 2020. Infrastructure construction on Woody Island has often sparked protests, particularly in Vietnam. Another controversial point is that a hotpot restaurant opened on Woody Island in April 2023 drew Vietnam’s ire.
I hope Woody Island will not create a war-like situation in the region.
Prof Shankar Chatterjee, Hyderabad
Track2Training 
You must be logged in to post a comment.