Territorial and Maritime Disputes in East Asia: claims, stakes and solutions

East China Sea (ECS), Sea of Japan (SoJ) and South China Sea (SCS) have emerged as the

most contested waters today. A number of countries claim sovereignty over the numerous

islets, reefs and the waters surrounding them, damaging bilateral relations, imperilling regional

security and threatening to ensnare great powers into wars that they clearly do not want. In

ECS, China and Taiwan claim sovereignty over Japanese-administered Senkaku

(Japanese)/Diaoyu (Chinese) islands. Japan questions South Korea’s sovereignty over

Takeshima (Japanese)/Dokdo (Korean) islets in SoJ. In SCS, China is embroiled in similar

disputes over Paracel and Spratly Islands and other rocks, reefs and shoals against four South

East Asian (SEA) states: Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. America is indirectly

implicated through its security alliances with Japan and the Philippines and its maritime

security interests. Undoubtedly, these disagreements have far-reaching regional security

implications.

Senkaku/Diaoyu consists of eight uninhabited islets totalling about seven square miles. Japan

claims that (1) the islands were terra nullius (uninhabited) before its imperial annexation in

January 1895; (2) Japan has exercised sovereignty over the islands ever since (except 1953-

1972: American administration); and (3) China only started claiming the islands when in 1968,

the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia estimated that vast deposits of oil and gas

might be hidden there. Beijing counters that (1) China discovered the islands first and used

them as “navigational reference points” and “sources of medicinal herbs” since the 14th

Century; (2) Japan tacitly acquiesced to Chinese ownership of the islands before 1895; and (3)

Japan should have transferred the islands to China under the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations

since they were seized during the Sino-Japanese war of 1895.

These historical claims and counter-claims notwithstanding, the islands receded from political

memory until oil and gas were found in 1968. Since then, diplomatic spats frequently tested

Tokyo-Beijing relations. Recent events have raised the spectre of a devastating military clash.

In September 2010, a Chinese fishing boat crashed into two Japanese coastguard vessels,

leading to the arrest of the Chinese captain. China retaliated by cutting the export of rare-earth

material to Japan, allowing widespread anti-Japanese protests and dispatching patrol vessels

near the disputed islands. On 10 September, 2012, the Japanese government purchased the

islands from the private owner to pre-empt their more provocative acquisition by Tokyo’s

nationalistic Governor Shintaro Ishihara. China’s reaction was premeditated (according to

some analysts), furious and sustained. To assert jurisdiction in “China’s territorial waters,”

maritime surveillance and fisheries ships stepped up what Beijing calls “routine and normal

patrols”, causing confrontations with Japanese naval forces. On 30 January, 2013, a Chinese

frigate locked its radar on a Japanese destroyer. Chinese surveillance planes and Japanese

fighter-jets squared off in the skies. The potential for accidental clashes was elevated when

China declared its own Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) on 23 November, 2013, which

overlaps with Japan’s existing ADIZ. This provoked South Korea into announcing its own

ADIZ. A war between China and Japan over these islands will draw in the United States

because of alliance obligations to Japan. This will blow a hole straight through the aspirations

to build a new type of “major-power relationship” between the US and China.

Japan’s dispute with South Korea over Takeshima/Dokdo islands is also mired in

historical ambiguity. Both assert historical and legal sovereignty over the islands although

South Korea has administered them since 1954. While the dispute had flared up in the past,

tensions peaked in January 2014 when the Japanese Ministry of Education instructed schools

to teach that Takeshima (and Senkaku) islands are integral Japanese territory under Korean

occupation. Predictably, this drew sharp rebukes from Seoul and Beijing. The dispute between

Japan and South Korea is set to worsen when the latter goes ahead with its claim over another

Japan-administered island, Tsushima. America’s efforts to reconcile differences between its

two key alliance partners in East Asia will be tested severely then.

South China Sea is the site of even knottier rows among China and Taiwan, Vietnam,

Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Home to several contested islands, the Spratly

and Paracel islands have the greatest potential to spark military clashes. Consisting of 140

islets, rocks, shoals and reefs, Spratly islands are claimed in their entirety by China, Taiwan

and Vietnam, while Malaysia and the Philippines claim some of the islets and features. The

Paracel, consisting of thirty five islets, shoals, sandbanks and reefs are claimed by China,

Taiwan and Vietnam. China has administered the Paracel since its eviction of Vietnamese

forces in 1976. China stakes its claim over SCS in terms of a U-shaped “nine-dash line”,

reproducing the “nine-dotted line” declared by Nationalist China in 1947. This line hugs the

coastlines of Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Philippines, overlapping with the

Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of the SEA claimants. While China, Vietnam and the

Philippines have clashed militarily in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, recent events have once

again raised the threat of military skirmishes between China and Vietnam and Philippines. In

early 2012, Chinese and Filipino naval assets confronted each other in a tense stand-off for

weeks around Scarborough shoals. A China-Philippines war will likely implicate the US on the

latters’ side.

What is driving these disputes? First, we are witnessing the re-opening of disputes

frozen by the strategic imperatives of the Cold War. Second, resources, chiefly oil, gas and

fisheries motivate the rival claims. Energy security is a growing concern for East Asia and the

oil and gas deposits believed to be under the waters are too important to ignore for their energy-

hungry economies. Energy security also advantages sovereign control of the waters

surrounding these islands, busy and strategic shipping lanes carrying oil and gas to East Asia.

Third, there are compelling strategic reasons. China’s naval ambition beyond these islands is a

non-starter if its strategic movement within these waters remains constrained. It is not for

nothing that China is developing Anti-Access, Area-Denial (A2-AD) capabilities to dominate

these waters. Conversely, if China attains that capability, many East Asian states will be

vulnerable to direct strategic threats and America’s ability to support its allies will be blunted.

The anticipated expansion of Chinese interests and ambitions to match its rising capabilities

and visibly greater assertiveness is why the tensions this time around are more pregnant with

danger. This explains the efforts by a number of Asian countries to entrench American strategic

involvement in their region through security alliances, bilateral exchanges and ASEAN

multilateralism. Finally, the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), the primary

instrument for resolving maritime disputes, does not cohere well with the East Asian

geography. Its definition of concepts like “Territorial Waters” and EEZ induces overlapping

claims and incentivises pre-emptive occupations, even militarisation, of islands, reefs and

shoals. If a formation can have TWs and EEZs on the basis of demonstrated suitability for

human habitation, it incentivises states to “develop” even submerged features. Because the

exercise of historical sovereignty is a key criterion for adjudicating disputes, claimants make

rival retrospective assertions dating back to the early Middle Ages. Invariably, these historical

claims are ambiguous and inconclusive.

Other mechanisms have been tried to ease tension and resolve the disputes. Japan, the

Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia have signed bilateral agreements with China to jointly

explore, exploit and manage the resources. In 2002, China and ASEAN signed the “Declaration

on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea” which instructed the parties to avoid violence

to resolve their disputes. While China has been allergic to discussing the disputes in SCS

through ASEAN’s multilateral mechanism, preferring bilateral engagements with weaker

partners, divisions within ASEAN have called into question its ability to play a constructive

role. The Philippines, Japan and Vietnam have either proposed or taken their cases to the

international court of arbitration, but China has consistently refused to use this mechanism.

China is biding its time until it has accumulated enough power to dictate terms in the region.

Current events show that the disputes, especially involving China, have gotten worse despite

these efforts. The only certainty in the near-future is that a resolution will be elusive. Even if

one state emerges powerful enough to impose its will upon others, it will only resolve the issue

of control, not the legitimacy of ownership.