According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, the country's Transport Ministry held a ceremony on Tuesday to celebrate the completion of the 55-meter-high facility.
"The lighthouse emits white light in the nighttime, with a light range of 22 nautical miles and a glowing cycle of five seconds," Xinhua said.
The facility is equipped with an automatic identification system and very high frequency stations which Xinhua said will help "provide efficient navigation services such as positioning reference, route guidance and navigation safety information to ships."
In 2015, the Chinese Transport Ministry announced plans to construct an array of large multi-purpose lighthouses on the Spratly Islands, in a bid to improve the maritime emergency response in the area.
Overall, China claims over 80 percent of the South China Sea as its own. The United States has repeatedly warned that it does not recognize Chinese claims of sovereignty over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
Countries located in the South China Sea area, including Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam, have expressed competing claims to the disputed Spratly Islands.
Meeting his US counterpart Barack Obama on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping specifically warned against violating his country's sovereignty and undermining its national interests under the pretext of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
