BEIJING — China accused the United States of hypocrisy Friday over President Barack Obama’s comments that the rising Asian power is using its “sheer size and muscle” to intimidate other nations in the South China Sea.

Satellite photos published this week showed that Chinese dredgers are effectively building an island of sand on a reef in the Spratly Islands, which the Chinese call the Nansha Islands. The area – appropriately named Mischief Reef – sits off the coasts of Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, all of which have claims on the Spratlys, as do Brunei and Taiwan.

“Where we get concerned with China is where it is not necessarily abiding by international norms and rules and is using its sheer size and muscle to force countries into subordinate positions,” Obama said Thursday in response to a question at a forum in Kingston, Jamaica.

… One of these was Richard Bitzinger, coordinator of the Military Transformations Programme at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, who said: “Amphibious planes like the AG600 would be perfect for resupplying the new artificial islands that the Chinese are building.”