East Sea

By François-Xavier Bonnet   Irasec’s Discussion Papers, No. 14, November 2012, 42 pages, www.irasec.com Downloadable for Free:http://www.irasec.com/components/com_irasec/media/upload/DP14-ScarboroughShoal.pdf    Scarborough is the largest atoll in the South China Sea, located some 220 kilometers from the Philippines. The shoal is located inside the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines but is claimed by China as its ancestral territory since the 13th century. The paper considers the strategic importance of the shoal for the two countries. Then, using unpublished records and documents from China, the Philippines, and the United States, the author will show that the two countries claimed Scarborough Shoal in the 1930s, each without...

Speaking to diplomats, businessmen and journalists at the British Foreign Office in November, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia emphasized the need for “norms and principles” in resolving disputes in the South China Sea. Why did President Yudhoyono, who was spending a week in London at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II as the first leader to visit Britain during the year of her Diamond Jubilee, feel that he had to bring up the South China Sea disputes at such a time? After a member of the audience asked what Indonesia, the leading nation in the Association of Southeast Asian...

Beijing has finally achieved its aspiration to be a force to be reckoned with on the high seas. The long-awaited launch of China’s aircraft carrier signaled the incremental readjustment of power relations in East Asia. However, the rise of one power does not necessarily translate to the decline of all others in the vicinity. The rise of China as a naval power will inevitably highlight the indispensability of Japan and prompt Tokyo’s ascent to a position of greater political and military importance in Northeast Asia.  Recently, Professor Robert Farley drew parallels between military conditions today and those in the 1920s...

Chinese territorial claims propel science into choppy waters. Clashes at sea. Disputed borders. It is not the usual stuff of science. But researchers and scientific journals are being pulled into long-simmering border disputes between China and its neighbours. Confrontations involving research vessels are raising tensions in the region, while the Chinese government is being accused of using its scientists’ publications to promote the country’s territorial claims. Mine, all mine: the rush to claim minerals and oil is driving China’s marine ambitions. Source: CHINAFOTOPRESS/GETTY China’s desire to increase its exploitation of the sea is no secret. The country’s 12th five-year plan, which...

Political maps that seek to advance disputed territorial claims have no place in scientific papers. Researchers should keep relationships cordial by depoliticizing their work. Muhammad Ali observed that the wars of nations are fought to change maps — and he was a man who knew how to fight. Yet there are more subtle ways to change maps. Take the South China Sea: Chinese officials insist that much of its waters belong to China, and Chinese maps tend to include a dotted line that makes the same point. Yet there is no international agreement that China should have possession, and other...

It would be rather absurd if England were to try to claim sovereignty over most of the English Channel, Iran the Persian Gulf, Thailand the Gulf of Thailand, Vietnam the Gulf of Tonkin, Japan the Sea of Japan, or Mexico the Gulf of Mexico. But that is exactly what China is trying to do by claiming most of the South China Sea, a body of water about the size of the Mediterranean Sea bordered by nine nations plus Taiwan, and the main gateway between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean.  Although there are long-standing territorial disputes over the Paracel Islands and...