Fighting over Rocks in the Ocean

One of the big stories in this part of the world lately has been an increase in tensions between Japan, China and Taiwan over the islands known in Chinese as the Diaoyu or Diaoyutai Islands and in Japanese as the Senkaku Islands. In July, a group of activists based in Taiwan sailed to the islands to raise a flag, though rather absurdly the flag they raised was that of China, i.e., the People’s Republic of China, not that of the Republic of China (Taiwan’s official name); they claimed to have forgotten to bring their ROC flag. In August, another group of activists sailed to the islands from Hong Kong and planted both PRC and ROC flags before being arrested by the Japanese and deported back to Hong Kong. About a week later, a group of Japanese nationalists traveled to the islands to emphasize Japan’s claim, setting off anti-Japanese riots in China. Most recently, the Japanese central government officially purchased the islands from the Japanese family whose ownership it had previously recognized. While this was done in part to prevent a group led by a nationalist politician from making a bid for them, China has reacted angrily and Taiwan has also protested.

All three sides in this dispute have looked rather foolish. A key point to keep in mind is that these islands are uninhabited. All sides have asserted “historical claims” to the islands, which is frankly ridiculous. Historical claims are often founded on dubious grounds even when inhabited places are at issue; in the case of uninhabited rocks no one should be trying to use history as the primary basis for a claim. China and Taiwan say that the islands appeared on maps from the Ming and Qing dynasty and that some of the later maps marked them as being part of China. This is meaningless, as marks on a map signify very little, particularly when talking about a place where no one lives; in fact Qing China didn’t even rule all of the island of Taiwan, so how could it have exercised any sort of meaningful control over a bunch of rocks in the ocean far to the northeast of Taiwan? As for assertions that the islands were actually inhabited at some point by Chinese, even if this were the case, it was almost certainly a case of temporary habitation by fishermen or even pirates, and it’s unlikely that the Qing government even knew about it or that those on the islands cared anything for political claims by China or anyone else.

From what I have read, the only substantial settlement on the islands was during the first half of the 20th century, when a Japanese businessman built a fish processing plant on one of the islands that employed about 200 workers. This business collapsed in 1940, however, and no one has lived there since, so this hardly amounts to much more of a basis for claiming ownership than the activities of Chinese fishermen in the 19th century. From the end of World War II in 1945 until 1972, the islands, along with the much larger Ryukyu island group of which Okinawa is the main island, were under United States administration. While they were handed over to Japanese control in 1972, there is no particular reason why they should have been, as even Japan’s claim to the Ryukyus, which were once an independent kingdom, is a little dubious. But China’s claim is certainly no better, and Japan not unreasonably points out that China only started making a claim after potential oil and gas reserves were discovered in the area around the time of the American handover. On the other hand, Japan’s refusal to even officially acknowledge that a dispute exists is equally foolish, as its calling them an “integral” part of Japan (how can a bunch of rocks hundreds of kilometers from the main Japanese islands be integral in any way?). Certainly belligerent posturing by either China or Japan is completely uncalled for, given the shakiness of both sides’ claims.

As for Taiwan, the government has for the most part taken a slightly more low-key stance, and has called for negotiations over the islands. But in other ways it has managed to just look as foolish as China and Japan, if not even more so. In the incident in July, the activists’ fishing boat was actually escorted by Taiwanese coast guard vessels, even though they carried a PRC flag with them, and in the August incident, the Taiwanese coast guard gave the activists supplies, even though they were not coming from Taiwan but from Hong Kong and were essentially asserting the PRC’s claim, not Taiwan’s. At least as absurdly, the Taiwanese government has cited the same highly dubious “historical evidence” that China has. This is largely because the current government particularly is still trying to claim to be the heir of the Republic of China regime that ruled China itself in the first half of the 20th century (though without daring to challenge the PRC directly), but in fact, using such specious historical evidence is tantamount to supporting China’s equally baseless claims to Taiwan itself, which is a foolishly self-defeating approach to take.

The Senkaku or Diaoyutai Islands are not the only disputed islands that have been in the news recently. The Liancourt Rocks, known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese, are disputed between South Korea, which currently controls them, and Japan, which they lie almost exactly between. They were in the news recently because a South Korean soccer (football) player held up a sign referring to the Korean claim after his team won its bronze medal match against Japan in the recent Olympics. The islands (really just rocks) are inhabited by a single Korean civilian couple and several dozen Korean police officers and a few other government personnel. There are numerous disputed historical references to the rocks in Korean and Japanese records, but in this case also such things are a rather dubious basis for any kind of claim, as given that the rocks, being too small and isolated for permanent occupation without outside help, were uninhabited until 1991 when the couple living there now were sent by the South Korean government. In this case it is South Korea which refuses to consider negotiations or arbitration. In any event, both sides elaborate arguments backing up their claims are about as ridiculous as those of the claimants to the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands.

The most complex dispute over islands in East Asia is that over the various island groups in the South China Sea, the largest such groups being the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands. Both China and Taiwan claim all of the islands in the South China Sea, and Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei also claim various islands, rocks and shoals in the region. China exercises practical control over the Parcels and recently provoked controversy by upgrading the administrative status of the territory to a “city”, though its center of government is an island with only a few hundred residents. There was also a standoff between Philippines and Chinese vessels back in April over a shoal in the region. Aside from protests by Southeast Asian claimants over Chinese aggressiveness in the area, these actions have led the US to urge the parties (meaning mostly China) to refrain from stirring things up, which of course has led to angry statements from China. Taiwan, meanwhile, exercises control over the largest island in the Spratlys, which has a few hundred non-civilian residents, though Vietnam holds the largest number of islets. None of the islands in the South China Sea, however, has any significant civilian population and it is unlikely that they were inhabited for any substantial length of time in the past either. Once again, all the historical “evidence” asserted by the various claimants is questionable at best, and in most cases laughably flimsy. In one particularly absurd case, China, Taiwan and the Philippines have even laid claim to all or part of a sunken atoll or bank, even though it is entirely underwater. But the Philippines did make some good points regarding their dispute with China over the shoal mentioned above, namely that “historical claims are not historical titles...a claim by itself, including [a] historical claim, [is] not...a basis for acquiring a territory” and “the act of fishing by Chinese fishermen [cannot be considered] a sovereign act of a State nor can [it] be considered as a display of State authority.” These arguments apply equally to all the arguments based on history made by the different sides in all of these disputes.

While China is the most aggressive party in the South China Sea dispute, none of the various claimants in any of these disputes has a very substantial basis for their claims. Indeed, these conflicts illustrate the some of the more ludicrous aspects of the modern concept of sovereignty. The idea that any nation should have sovereignty over barren, uninhabited rocks in the ocean is silly to begin with. It is even more ridiculous to claim that such sovereignty is absolute or worst of all permanent. Anyone who uses the worlds "eternal", "forever", "inseparable", or the like in relation to sovereignty over any place can be discounted as a raving lunatic. These rocks have been around thousands of times longer than the nations that are fighting over them and will no doubt be here long after the nations are gone (though they may be underwater thanks to our alteration of the world's climate). If they belong to anyone, they belong to the seabirds and plants that call them home. Ideally of course, rather than making silly arguments and getting all worked up over nonsense like "national pride" (as if any of these nationalist protesters are really affected in any significant way by whether their country owns these rocks or not), the disputants would simply find a way to share the resources involved (though given the problem of climate change, I’d just as soon see any oil and gas in these areas left in the ground). But when it comes to territorial disputes, nations tend to behave like small children in a room with a bunch of desirable toys: They don’t want to share them with anyone else, and rather dubiously claim to have been playing with them first when anyone else tries to claim them. It would be nice to see them all grow up a little and find a way to share, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem too likely.


Related articles:
http://news.yahoo.com/china-sends-patrol-ships-islands-held-japan-051725925.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/05/us-china-usa-southchinasea-idUSBRE87401120120805
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0905/China-territorial-disputes-a-warning-in-the-history-of-Imperial-Japan

[Update: One topic I didn't touch on here is the residual hostility toward Japan in countries like China and Korea due to Japan's deeds in the early 20th century. While in disputes like the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Japan probably has a slightly stronger case, it's also true that Japan, unlike Germany, has never fully faced up to some of the horrible things it did in WWII and the period leading up to it (the Rape of Nanjing, comfort women, treatment of POWs and subject peoples, etc.). While this is not directly relevant to these territorial disputes, it doesn't help matters, especially when some of the same right-wing nationalists that have prevented Japan from making a full apology for what it did in the past are also among those provoking tensions over the islands along with the nationalists from China et al. However, this does not excuse the absurdly militant attitudes on the other side -- supposedly even Taiwan and Hong Kong singers and movie stars have been avoiding having anything to do with Japan lately out of a cowardly fear of exciting the ire of anti-Japanese Chinese nationalists. If these people were up in arms for the remaining comfort women or other victims of Japanese militarism it wouldn't be so bad, but to ignore historical issues of justice in favor of fighting for these rocks is idiotic. One Chinese protester was at least quite perceptive about the government's role: "'I think the government is encouraging this,' said one protester, who gave his name as Uda Chen. 'They could have stopped all of us approaching when we were at the subway station. The government has taught us to be anti-Japanese at school, so if they want us to stop it would be like slapping their own mouths,' he added." Of course, one wonders why if he is aware that the government has brainwashed him and is manipulating him, he continues to do what it wants.]