Taiwan shows off Taiping Island in the South China Sea

Al Jazeera Thu, Mar 24 7:36 AM PDT 

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Taiping - Taiwan had waited 60 years for this moment. Our C130 military transport plane had just landed on the tiny island of Taiping, also known as Itu Aba. Actually it is more a runway than island. Taiping is less than a kilometre long. It had been a four-and-a-half hour, 1,600km journey from the capital Taipei to this distant Taiwanese outpost in the heart of the South China Sea. But it was worth it. As I walked down the ramp on to the tarmac I was making history, albeit history with a small "h". I had become one of the first foreign journalists to set foot on the island since Taiwan began its occupation at the end of World War II. Sixty years on, Taiwan has been busy cementing its sovereignty. .