South China Sea Dispute

In the recent years, there is a conflict of territory between countries that caught the global attention. It’s about the ownership of several small islands in the South China Sea. Six primary countries are competing for its ownership. Each of them claimed the right to have these islands. The territory conflict supposed to engage only the competitors. However, at this time the whole world is

in the region. America’s presence in Guam and the Philippines and its support of China posed

Since their purchase by the Japanese government from their private owners in September 2012, the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands have been a topic of protest and discontent in the East China Sea and its surrounding area. While current conflicts have arisen because of skirmishes with patrol boats and sightings of Chinese drones flying over the islands, disputes over sovereignty of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands have existed since the cession of Chinese territory in the Treaty of Shimonoseki following China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War. Original ownership of the islands was never officially settled between China and Japan, but after the establishment of several more international treaties in the twentieth century, jurisdiction over the islands became unclear and practically undeterminable. While conflicts were set aside during the latter half of the twentieth century in order to improve Sino-Japanese relationships, the purchase of the islands and military activity renewed tensions between the two nations. Present-day territorial disputes over the sovereignty of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands are a result of the multiple cessions and reversions of control in twentieth century treaty laws between China and Japan.

The Spratly Islands provide a rich source of controversy, despite their small size, due to the aforementioned rich resources and disputed claims. Where the background information leaves off, at the year 1988, no less than four countries have claimed the Spratly Islands: Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and China. Two newcomers, Brunei and Malaysia, have claimed small parts, but as of 1988 no effort had been made to enforce these claims. These nations are all recently industrialized- and are all eager to stake their place in the world. All are desperate to prove themselves to the international community that they are forced to reckoned with- not playthings which can be exploited by western powers. Therefore, there is a great sense of national

China claims that the Spratly Islands/ Nansha Islands are discovered more than 2,000 years ago and it recorded in some historical books and documents (Scattered Books of the Zhou Dynasty, The Classics of Poems, Zuo’s Commentaries, and Statements of the States). In March 1959, China set up an office in charge of the Spratly Islands and other islands in the South China Sea. In March 1988, China try to against the penetration of the Spratly Islands by Vietnam. China also claims that other countries try to take over the ownership of the Spratly Islands considered illegal due to the China already own the authority of the Spratly Islands and undertake the responsibility on in charge all the feature of the islands. They also believes that the sovereignty

Description of the various conflict management techniques used, the third parties that were active in attempts to resolve the conflict, and the outcomes of these conflict management efforts.

The Spratly Islands: The Spratly Islands are a group in many of small island chains which are present throughout the pacific. The Spratly Islands are located between the Philippines, Taiwan (ROC), Vietnam, and China (PRC). The Spratly islands are currently claimed by the PRC, the ROC, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Sultanate of Brunei. The Spratlys are themselves deprived of resources, are physically tiny with a combined area of 32km, and devoid of any civilian population. However, they possess offshore resources such as excellent fishing grounds, petroleum deposits, and if they are successfully claimed would expand any nation’s maritime border well off the continental shelf. They are the focus of a bitter and intensifying international conflict whose sources lie in the complexly tangled histories of the cold war and each nation in the region.

As of today, China has expanded and built over seven artificial islands in the South China Sea since 2014. The South China Sea has recently come to be a major problem in Asia as issues have risen over who has rights of passage and claims in this area. The Chinese of recent have been making territorial claims in the South China Sea that are in areas of free passage for many other Asian countries and the United States. In October 2015, a U.S. guided missile destroyer encountered one of the artificial islands and China’s response was that it would “take any measure” to maintain its security in “their territory”. The Chinese have been questioned in the Permanent Court of Arbitration by the Philippines after claiming rights to historical locations in the South China Sea, which violates sovereign rights of the Philippines, yet China responded to this outcome with refusal and has continued to advance itself in the territory causing huge disputes with its neighboring countries as freedom of navigation has been compromised through China’s actions.. In order to guarantee resolution and maintain the freedom of navigation aspect of international law there needs to be a foreign policy put in place that puts more United States military in the South China Sea with support from disputing countries like Japan and the Philippines as a way to make the issue multilateral and law abiding.

In July 2013, Wenweipo - the pro-PRC Chinese-language newspaper published an article titled “Six Wars China is sure to fight in the next 50 years”. According to this article, after unification of Taiwan (year 2020 to 2025), China will take the second war: Reconquest of Spratly Islands (year 2025 to 2030) and “China will send the ultimatum to countries surrounding the Islands with the deadline of 2028. The countries having disputes on the sovereignty of Islands can negotiate with China on preserving their shares of investments in these Islands by giving up”. In 1999, two Chinese military colonels – authors of the book namely “Unlimited War” suggested using an “unlimited war” to solve the disputing in the South China Sea. These authors said that, to avoid a war does not mean that not using military force and a conflict is indispensable. However, there is one more important thing that to control the intensities of conflict that. It is necessary to conduct some special activities to prove the sovereignty of China in the disputing Spratly Islands but do not let this activities increase to the total war. These things prove that the potential war between Vietnam and China in the future could be come true.

From an international relations perspective, the Taiwan Strait, one of the most likely conflict zones in the Asia-Pacific region, has been dubbed the “Balkan Peninsula of the East.” The status of Taiwan has been one of the most intricate issues in international relations arena for the past decades. The Taiwan question is essentially an extension of the “two Chinas” problem, which creates a dilemma for accommodating

The dispute over the South China Sea denotes the process of power rebalancing while China rising as a hegemony in East Asia. China craves for more resources and power and decides to effectuate that by controlling more maritime territory. This act impelled the United State to align with the Philippines to balance with China. In a realism world, U.S. has adequate reason to intervene for fear for China becoming too strong a power.

An enduring dispute over Dokdo Island has proven difficult to resolve. Japan and Korea have been having an argument over the island for sovereignty ever since 1910 (South). This island has three names, Dokdo, Takeshima, and Liancourt. Dokdo, a solitary island, is a Korean name for this island. Takeshima, a Bamboo Island, is what Japanese call it. Both Japan and South Korea uses historical facts to support their claims for the island (Profile). To what extent is the dispute between Korea and Japan an issue about resources versus history?

The territorial and maritime disputes over the South China Sea (SCS) have been ongoing for decades. The disputes have been considered to be one the fiercest-contested in Asia. The South China Sea is an enclosed sea surrounded by several different states. China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan, and Malaysia all surrounded the South China Sea. The main cause of tension in this dispute is because China claims to have “historical sovereignty” over all of the South China Sea. Associations of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have come up with different discussions and suggestions on how to end the disputes with favorable conditions for all contending states. They use the principles of the United Nation Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and form the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC). The states surrounding the South China Sea possess 12 nautical miles territorial sea and 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Thus, the South China Sea is not only international waters, instead, it is also overlapping exclusive economic zones. According to UNCLOS, disputes over exclusive economic zones must be resolved through negotiations by the contending states. Many of these contending Southeast Asian states have negotiated their maritime boundaries, however, China fails to comply. China claims that it owns all of the South China Sea, and therefore, has no need to

In the Western Pacific, the South China Sea is a global crossroads that holds strategic importance for many nations world wide. The South China Sea stretches from the Taiwan and Luzon Straits in the north to Indonesia and the Strait of Malacca in the south with Vietnam on the west and the Philippines and Borneo on the east. In total size, the South China Sea surpasses the Mediterranean Sea. However, unlike this Near-Eastern comparator, territorial disputes and conflicting claims threaten the movement of global trade through the South China Sea, thus unbalancing regional stability in the Asia-Pacific. Claimants include the bordering coastal countries of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (a.k.a. Taiwan), the

The first paragraph of this essay will explain the concept of security dilemma, security issues in the constructivist approach and the construction of identity in international relations. The second paragraph will introduce ASEAN and its identity. The paragraph before last will mention the interaction of the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America in the region which resulted in a security dilemma in ASEAN, then the last section will be the conclusion and the summary of answers to the aforementioned.