Amid China's raging conflict with Vietnam over the deployment of an oil rig in disputed South China Sea waters, Beijing has begun building a school on one of the islands also claimed by Hanoi for its military personnel and local settlers.
Sansha City, China's youngest city in Hainan Province, started to build its first school with an investment of USD 5.76 million, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The construction of the school on Yongxing island including a kindergarten and a primary school, is expected to be completed in a year-and-a-half, said mayor Xiao Jie.
Sansha City, on Yongxing, one of the Xisha islands, was officially established in July in 2012 to administer the Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha island groups and their surrounding waters in the South China Sea, the Xinhua report said.
About 40 school-age children have parents living and working on Yongxing.
With no school, most went to schools elsewhere or were left with their grandparents, it said.
Vietnam, US and the Philippines had criticised the establishment of the island city in 2012.
The island group which is known as Paracel islands is also claimed by Vietnam which is fiercely resisting China's attempts to deploy an oil rig near some of the disputed islands in the area.
Four Chinese nationals were killed in anti-China riots in Vietnam and over 100 injured over the dispute in May while the naval boats of the two countries rammed into each other hundreds of times.
China has complained to the UN against Vietnam's resistance to the Chinese oil rig which is continuing.
China asserts that the islands belong to it historically.
Besides Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also contest China's claims of sovereignty over almost the whole of the South China Sea.
