Geopolitics and Maritime Territorial Disputes in East Asia PDF
Preview Geopolitics and Maritime Territorial Disputes in East Asia
Geopolitics and Maritime Territorial Disputes in East Asia Geopolitics is a crucial element in understanding international relations in East Asia, with major and medium powers competing for influence. This book examines geopolitics in East Asia, focusing in particular on its major, contentious maritime territorial disputes. It looks in detail at the overlapping claims between Japan, China and Taiwan over the Senkaku/Diao yu Islands in the East China Sea as well as the Paracel Islands claimed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam and the Spratly Islands involving Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam in the South China Sea. The book offers a comparative study of the East and South China seas by arguing that their respective circumstances are influenced by similar geopolitical considerations; factors such as territory, natural resources and power competition all impact on disputes and broader regional relations. It is precisely the interplay of these geopolitical forces that can lead to the rapid escalation of a maritime territorial dispute or reversely to a diffusion of tensions. The book considers how such disputes might be managed and resolved peacefully, despite the geopolitical conditions that can make cooperation on these issues difficult to achieve. It also examines the prospect for conflict management and resolution by identifying catalysts which may contribute to improving the climate of relations. Ralf Emmers is Associate Professor and Head of Graduate Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests are in security studies, international institutions in the Asia Pacific, and the international relations of Southeast Asia. His publications include Non-Traditional Security in the Asia-Pacific: The Dynamics of Securitization andCooperative Security and the Balance of Power in ASEAN and the ARF (Routledge). He is co-editor of Security and International Politics in the South China Sea: Towards a Cooperative Management Regime; Order and Security in Southeast Asia: Essays in Memory of Michael Leifer(both published by Routledge) and Understanding Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Dilemmas in Securitization. Routledge Security in Asia Pacific Series Leszek Buszynski, International University of Japan, and William Tow, Australian National University Security issues have become more prominent in the Asia Pacific region because of the presence of global players, rising great powers, and confident middle powers, which intersect in complicated ways. This series puts forward important new work on key security issues in the region. It embraces the roles of the major actors, their defense policies and postures and their security interaction over the key issues of the region. It includes coverage of the United States, China, Japan, Russia, the Koreas, as well as the middle powers of ASEAN and South Asia. It also covers issues relating to environmental and economic security as well as transnational actors and regional groupings. 1 Bush and Asia 7 Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons America’s evolving relations Bhumitra Chakma with East Asia 8 Human Security in East Asia Edited by Mark Beeson Challenges for collaborative 2 Japan, Australia and action Asia-Pacific Security Edited by Sorpong Peou Edited by Brad Williams and 9 Security and International Andrew Newman Politics in the South China 3 Regional Cooperation and Its Sea Enemies in Northeast Asia Towards a co-operative The impact of domestic forces management regime Edited by Edward Friedman Edited by Sam Bateman and Sung Chull Kim and Ralf Emmers 4 Energy Security in Asia 10 Japan’s Peace Building Edited by Michael Wesley Diplomacy in Asia Seeking a more active 5 Australia as an Asia Pacific political role Regional Power Lam Peng Er Friendships in flux? Edited by Brendan Taylor 11 Geopolitics and Maritime Territorial Disputes in 6 Securing Southeast Asia East Asia The politics of security sector reform Ralf Emmers Mark Beeson and Alex J. Bellamy Geopolitics and Maritime Territorial Disputes in East Asia Ralf Emmers First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. ©2010 Ralf Emmers All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Emmers, Ralf, 1974– Geopolitics and maritime territorial disputes in East Asia / Ralf Emmers. p. cm. – (Routledge security in Asia Pacific series ; 11) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Security, International – East Asia. 2. Geopolitics – East Asia. 3. Territorial waters – East Asia. I. Title. JZ6009.E18E66 2009 341.4¢48095 – dc22 2009000017 ISBN 0-203-87501-X Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0–415–46942–2 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–87501–X (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–46942–5 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–87501–8 (ebk) Contents List of maps vi Foreword vii Acknowledgments ix List of abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1 The influence of geopolitics on maritime territorial disputes 8 2 The geopolitical considerations of the East Asian claimant states 21 3 The Senkaku/Diao yu dispute 47 4 The Paracel and Spratly disputes 65 5 Geopolitical interplay in the East and South China seas 87 6 Conflict management and resolution in the East and South China seas 107 Conclusion 127 Appendix: maps of the East and South China seas 139 Notes 144 Bibliography 163 Index 179 Maps The East China Sea 139 Disputed area and joint development zone in the East China Sea 140 The South China Sea 141 Overlapping claims in the South China Sea 142 Territorial claims and occupation of the Spratly Islands 143 Foreword The maritime geography of East Asia is very complex. Significant features include the chain of seas lying between the mainland of Asia and the off-lying islands and archipelagos stretching from the Kamchatka peninsula in the north through the Japanese and Philippine archipelagos to the main islands of Indonesia in the south. Maritime boundary-making in this area is problematic but is complicated further by the sovereignty disputes over groups of islands lying within the East Asian seas. Full resolution of maritime boundaries in the region will often require agreement between three or more countries. In the light of these considerations, the geopolitical dimensions of the sovereignty disputes over islands in the East Asian seas are extremely important. By examining these dimensions in the context of two of the region’s most prominent sovereignty disputes, those over the Senkaku/Diao yu Islands in the East China Sea and the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, this book fills a gap in the current literature dealing with the disputes and makes a major contribution to both regional security studies and our understanding of the geopolitics of East Asia. Geography is a fundamental determinant of a state’s behavior. This is particularly true of the countries that are parties to the island disputes discussed in this work. All might be classified as maritime states by virtue of their extensive maritime interests. All attach considerable importance to their offshore areas of maritime jurisdiction as a potential source of economic wealth, especially where these areas might contain valuable oil and gas resources. With this mindset, it is not surprising that all seek to do whatever they can to extend their claims over offshore natural resources. The drive to do so becomes even stronger with increasing concern over the scarcity of oil and gas resources. As the analysis in this book confirms, the geopolitical factors that characterize the sovereignty disputes over islands in the East and South China seas are broadly similar. The three key factors identified here are: territory, natural resources, and power distribution. Attachment to territory, regardless of whether it is land or sea, and its role in nation-building are major drivers of a country’s, all too often uncompromising, position on its sovereignty claims. Unfortunately, this can lead to confusion between the sovereignty a country exercises in its territorial sea and archipelagic waters and the sovereign rights it has over the resources of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf. This occurs, for example, when viii Foreword national leaders and politicians talk about the EEZ as “sovereign territory,” which, of course, it is not. With increased concern over energy security and resource scarcities, control over natural resources becomes a major geopolitical factor to explain the behavior of states. Barely twenty years ago, countries were much less concerned about this factor but now it has been elevated to the high politics of national security. With power relations, lingering bilateral tensions and threat perceptions are significant considerations, particularly, for example, in the East China Sea between Japan and China, and in the South China Sea between China and Vietnam. The way in which China seized the Paracels in 1974 and Mischief Reef in 1994 remain major “sore points” in Vietnam and the Philippines, respectively, and are often cited as examples of China’s power aspirations in the South China Sea. Despite the lingering nature of the island disputes, there are some positive aspects. As this work points out, the similarities of the two disputes and of their geopolitical features provide a basis for greater understanding of the dispute resolution process and of the possibilities for conflict management and resolution. There are good grounds for confidence that the disputes may eventually be resolved peacefully, even though this may not involve straight-line maritime boundaries in the conventional sense. However, before that happens, claimant countries will have to modify their position on the geopolitical factors that are robustly discussed in this volume. Sam Bateman Acknowledgments I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, in particular to Dean Barry Desker, for giving me the time and support to work on this project. I would like especially to thank Katherine Quah, Caleb Liu, and Joann Saw for their excellent and invaluable research and editorial assistance in the preparation of the manuscript. I wish to thank Sam Bateman for carefully reading each chapter and providing me with insightful comments as well as Evelyn Goh, Beverley Loke, Joseph Liow, and Tan See Seng for their support. My special thanks to the editors of the series, Professors Leszek Buszynski and William Tow, for their advice on the conceptualization and organization of the book and to the Routledge editorial team for their role in its production. The Publishers and the author would like to thank the following for permission to reprint their material: James Manicom and the Spatial Information System Laboratory, Flinders University, for kind permission to reprint a map of the disputed area and joint development zone in the East China Sea, from James Manicom, “Sino-Japanese cooperation in the East China Sea: limitations and prospects,” Contemporary Southeast Asia, December 2008, vol. 30 (3), pp. 455–78. Stein Tonnesson for kind permission to reprint a map of the South China Sea, from Stein Tonnesson, “China and the South China Sea: a peace proposal,” Security Dialogue, September 2000, vol. 31 (3), pp. 307–26. David Rosenberg for kind permission to reprint a map of the overlapping claims in the South China Sea, from http:// southchinasea.org/maps_images_territorial.htm; and for permission to reprint a map of the territorial claims and occupation of the Spratly Islands, from http://south chinasea.org/maps_images_territorial.htm. The map of the “East China Sea” by Danbury has been released into the public domain on the Turkish Wikipedia Project.
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