Published on : 02/08/2024
On August 2, 1989, the Chinese sovereignty steles on the six islands and reefs of the Nansha Islands, including Yongshu (永暑), Chigua (赤瓜), Huayang (華陽), Nanxun (南薰), Zhubi (渚碧), and Dongmen (東門), were all completed.
According to the introduction, all six steles of sovereignty are made of high-quality natural granite with roughly the same specifications. One side is engraved with "South China Sea Islands of the People's Republic of China" (中華人民共和國南沙群島), and the name of the reef is engraved in the centre.
The largest stone monument on Yongshu Reef is 50 centimetres tall and 80 centimetres wide. Zhang Ya Zheng, a mechanical technician from a certain engineering unit of the South China Sea Fleet at the time, was the first to be appointed as the reef chief of Yongshu Reef.
He revealed during an interview that the stone materials, steel bars, cement, and sand for the sovereignty stele were all transported from Mainland China.
The stele was prepared in advance, but the concrete base had to be poured on site. Although the cargo ship was full of construction materials, it could not approach due to shallow water and strong wind, and had to be transported by small boat. Then, they had to carry it bit by bit in the shallow sea, like ants moving house.
In addition, to carry out concrete construction, they had to race against the tide to pour the concrete when the reef was exposed. As there was no mixer, they even had to manually mix the cement.
