http://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/territorial-disputes/territorial-disputes-draft/
Staking Claims Territorial Disputes, Malignant and Benign
By Bloomberg News | Published June 9, 2014
Some things are worth fighting for. What about a few desert islands
occupied mainly by birds, goats and moles? China and Japan seem to think
so, the rest of the world is alarmed and a look at other territorial
disputes around the globe shows that stranger things have happened. There
are about 60 such conflicts simmering worldwide. Most will bubble along,
unresolved but harmless, 400 years after the Peace of Westphalia
established the notion of national sovereignty. Others are more dangerous.
The Situation
China and Vietnam are accusing each other of escalating tensions over
Chinese oil exploration in the South China Sea, with confrontations between
ships near the Paracel Islands, which both countries claim. In November,
China proclaimed an "air defense identification zone" over a set of islands
1,000 miles to the northeast in the East China Sea that China and Japan
have claimed since at least the 19th century. (Taiwan stakes a claim, too.)
On a visit to Beijing in December, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said the
U.S. doesn't recognize the zone, and the U.S., Japan and South Korea flew
military planes through it. President Barack Obama reinforced the point
when he went to Japan in April and promised to defend the disputed islands,
called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese and administered by Japan
since 1972. Japan rejects the idea that a dispute over the islands even
exists, and government policy prohibits negotiations that acknowledge
China's claim to them. China's separate claim to a huge swath of the oil-
and gas-rich waters of the South China Sea dates to 1947; there are now
competing claims there by Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia.
China is locked in a separate disagreement with India over the two
countries' land border.
The Background
A territorial dispute became a U.S. presidential election issue in 1960:
Richard Nixon assailed John F. Kennedy for refusing to commit to a nuclear
defense of Taiwan's rights to the islands of Quemoy and Matsu, which were
also claimed by China. Nothing much happened and Quemoy is now best known
for the meat cleavers its craftsmen made from the artillery shells fired at
the island. History shows that China has tended to avoid inflaming its
territorial disputes; Communist Party leaders have settled 17 of China's 23
disputes since 1949, sometimes receiving less than 50 percent of the land
at issue. Other nations aren't always so conciliatory. A 1998-2000 border
war between Ethiopia and Eritrea killed as many as 70,000 people. Argentina
and the U.K. fought a 74-day war over the Falkland Islands in 1982 and 913
people died. Some territorial battles are waged at the ballot box and in
courts. The U.K.'s 200-year dispute with Spain over Gibraltar appeared near
resolution in 2002 when the two countries agreed to joint sovereignty. The
deal collapsed when all but 200 of the area's 18,000 people voted to remain
a part of Britain. There are five official territorial disputes between the
U.S. and Canada, which share the world's longest land border and seem
inclined to disagree agreeably. Some disputes get ugly, then go away. Peru
and Ecuador fought the monthlong Cenepa War in 1995 over a remote patch of
the Amazon rainforest, killing about 40 people. After mediation by
neighbors and the U.S., a deal was signed in 1998. Peru and Ecuador are now
at peace.
The Argument
With China expanding its military, Japan starting to shed its postwar
pacifism, and energy resources at stake, some analysts see the East China
Sea and South China Sea conflicts as threats to peace that summon
comparisons to Europe before World War I and World War II. On the other
hand, the countries involved have much to lose by fighting. China and
Japan, the world's second- and third-largest economies, had trade of $366
billion in 2012, and China is Japan's biggest trading partner. There is
always danger, though, of a miscalculation or mistake -- two planes
colliding in midair, for example -- that could inflame longstanding enmity.
The Reference Shelf
Analysis of China's territorial disputes by M. Taylor Fravel of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
CIA Factbook list of territorial disputes worldwide.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry makes its case for sovereignty over the
Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.
Delaware won a century-and-a-half border argument with Pennsylvania, but
not until 1921.
(First published Jan. 12, 2014)
To contact the editors responsible for this QuickTake:
John Liu at jliu42_at_bloomberg.net
Jonathan I. Landman at jlandman4_at_bloomberg.net
Received on Mon Jun 09 2014 - 13:39:11 EDT