{"id":66410,"date":"2024-08-26T09:41:10","date_gmt":"2024-08-26T00:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/aug\/26\/thitu-island-philippines-south-china-sea-tensions-pag-asa-fishing-community"},"modified":"2024-08-26T09:41:10","modified_gmt":"2024-08-26T00:41:10","slug":"as-long-as-were-here-its-ours-the-island-fishing-community-on-the-frontline-of-south-china-sea-tensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=66410","title":{"rendered":"\u2018As long as we\u2019re here, it\u2019s ours\u2019: the island fishing community on the frontline of South China Sea tensions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Intensifying struggles with China are playing out on the doorstep of the almost 400 Philippine civilians on remote Thitu Island<\/p>\n<p>From the sandy beaches of Thitu Island, blue waters stretch for as far as the eye can see. It feels like a tranquil paradise: there\u2019s no noisy road traffic, air pollution or crowds. But Thitu is not a luxury retreat, it\u2019s a tiny island in the remote Spratly chain and one of the world\u2019s most fiercely contested maritime sites.<\/p>\n<p>Thitu has been occupied by the Philippines since 1974 and is home to 387 civilians. However, China also claims the island and much of the surrounding South China Sea. Thitu and its people are on the frontline of an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/jul\/12\/south-china-sea-conflict-philippines-coast-guard\">intensifying struggle<\/a> against their superpower neighbour.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/aug\/26\/thitu-island-philippines-south-china-sea-tensions-pag-asa-fishing-community\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Intensifying struggles with China are playing out on the doorstep of the almost 400 Philippine civilians on remote Thitu IslandFrom the sandy beaches of Thitu Island, blue waters stretch for as far as the eye can see. It feels like a tranquil paradise:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4385,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,55,535,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-philippines","category-south-china-sea","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4385"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66411,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66410\/revisions\/66411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}