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 Koreas 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 19531972: 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 Tokyos
nationalistic Governor Shintaro Ishihara. Chinas reaction was premeditated (according to
some analysts), furious and sustained. To assert jurisdiction in Chinas 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 Japans 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.

Japans 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. Americas 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 energyhungry 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. Chinas 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 Americas 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 ASEANs 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.