Sometimes you've got to see it to truly believe it. That is certainly true of a remarkable set of pictures published by a Philippine newspaper this week.
For years now, we've read about Chinese land reclamation and building in the contested waters of the South China Sea — construction that has put Beijing at odds with many of its Asian neighbors, as well as the United States.
In 2016, an international tribunal ruled that China's expansive maritime claims had no legal basis. But Beijing kept building, insisting repeatedly that it was all for civilian, not military, purposes.
Few outside China buy that. Foreign experts, most notably the people at the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, were left to scour grainy satellite images for proof. Finally, we have better pictures.
