Phl troops, villages struggle to live under China's shadow

Overwhelmed after setting foot for the first time on a far-flung but picturesque island in the disputed South China Sea, a military official knelt to kiss the shore. She held a small Philippine flag that fluttered in the breeze.

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Overwhelmed after setting foot for the first time on a far-flung but picturesque island in the disputed South China Sea, a military official knelt to kiss the shore. She held a small Philippine flag that fluttered in the breeze.

"This is just so beautiful," Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said of West York Island, one of nine islands, reefs and atolls occupied by Filipino forces in the long-contested waters. "This solidifies our resolve to fight for this place, whatever happens."

The 18.6-hectare (46-acre) droplet-shaped island, called Likas by Filipinos, could easily become an eco-tourism draw in tropical Asia with its powdery white-sand beaches, turquoise waters and giant sea turtle sanctuaries. Padilla expressed hope it could someday be opened to Filipino travelers and tourists from across the world.

But that longstanding aspiration", by Philippine officials has been stymied by a tangle of territorial conflicts involving a militarily superior China.

Beijing claims virtually the entire South China Sea, a vital globall trade route with rich undersea deposits of gas and oil. It has increasingly flexed its military might, including its navy - the largest in the world-to strengthen its grip on a strategic waterway it says it has owned since ancient times.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan contest China's expansive claims with their own, and the territorial stand-offs have increasingly flared into catand-mouse confrontations at sea in recent years.

The long-simmering disputes are also a delicate fault line in the regional rivalry between Beijing and Washington.