Islands Dispute Research Articles

The China’s Maritime Power Strategy and Sinocentrism - Focusing on the Islands Disputes and Maritime Silk Road

The China’s Maritime Power Strategy and Sinocentrism - Focusing on the Islands Disputes and Maritime Silk Road

Does 'America First' Help America? The Impact of Country Image on Exports and Welfare

This paper estimates the effects of bilateral and time-varying preference bias on trade flows and welfare. We use a unique dataset from the BBC World Opinion Poll that surveys (annually during 2005-2017 with some gaps) the populations from a wide array of countries on their views of whether an evaluated country is having a mainly positive or negative influence in the world. We identify the effects on bilateral preference parameters due to shifts in these country image perceptions, and quantify their general equilibrium effects on bilateral exports and welfare (each time for an evaluated exporting country, assuming that the exporting country's own preference parameters have not changed). We consider fi ve important shifts in country image: the George W. Bush effect, the Donald Trump effect, the Senkaku Islands Dispute effect, the Brexit effect, and the Good-Boy Canadian effect. We fi nd that such changes in bilateral country image perceptions have quantitatively important trade and welfare effects. The negative impact of Donald Trump's America First campaign rhetorics on the US' country image might have cost the US as much as 4% of its total exports and gains from trade. In contrast, the consistent improvement of Canadian country image between 2010 and 2017 has amounted to more than 10% of its total welfare gains from trade.

Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Dispute and the Reconstruction of China as Japan’s “Other”

Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Dispute and the Reconstruction of China as Japan’s “Other”

Stuck Between Two Allies

Abstract The Asia-Pacific region is home to numerous island and maritime disputes but the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute is unique in that it involves two u.s. allies placing Washington in a uncomfortable position. u.s. policy has long been that it takes no position on sovereignty and will abide by any negotiated resolution of the dispute. Yet when tensions have flared between South Korea and Japan over the issue, there have often been calls for the United States to intervene and help solve the problem. However, any u.s. attempt to exert its leverage to reach a solution would be dangerous. Instead, Washington’s best course of action is to quietly remind both sides of their common economic and security interests while helping Seoul and Tokyo to manage the dispute in a careful and judicious manner.

Problematic Issuance of Land Rights Certificate

Many people who have not registered ownership rights so that they have no protection andlegal certainty due to several factors: First, factor of land ownership history. Second,community psychology. Third, weakness of land registration rules. Fourth, executorimplementation, intervention BPHTB legislation and other fees. Fifth, the mechanism ofregistration of land is too expensive for the community both procedure and registration fee.The Solution and effort to minimize the occurrence of land disputes society are: first, bypreventing the land dispute case is not repeated. Second, the government immediatelysocialize what and how the issuance of land certificates and the purpose of certificates. Third,If there is dispute in the court that the object is not certified land, the court notifies the urbanvillage and local BPN to block the transaction or the transition of the land immediately. Fourth,each transaction or transition of land with proof of ownership in the form of girik, the witness inthe transaction should be the Village Head and the BPN officer, and fifth, it is better if there island dispute in the court, at least one judge from land law expert, such as non-academicjudges (academics). DOI: 10.15408/jch.v5i2.7089

Kebijakan Luar Negeri Jepang terhadap Pemberlakuan Zona Identifikasi Pertahanan Udara Tiongkok

Sengketa Kepulauan Senkaku menjadi salah satu sengketa kedaulatan teritorial yang paling kontroversial di Asia. Jepang dan Tiongkok telah berselisih Kepulauan sejak 1970. Konflik tersebut semakin memanas pada tahun 2013 ketika Tiongkok mendirikan Zona Identifikasi Pertahanan Udara. Tiongkok dan Jepang akan menanggapi setiap tindakan yang dilakukan oleh kedua negara untuk membela legitimasi masing-maisng di Kepulauan Senkaku. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk meneliti dan menganalisis respon yang diberikan oleh Jepang dalam menghadapi kebijakan Zona Identifikasi Pertahann Udara Tiongkok dan kebijakan yang akan dikeluarkan Jepang.

Trade Measures to Prevent Illegal Fishing and the WTO: An Analysis of the Settled Faroe Islands Dispute

AbstractThere has been increasing litigation in the WTO on environmental issues in recent years, much of it about fishing. Two cases,Chile–SwordfishandFaroes–Herring, brought to light the potential for conflict between trade and fisheries law through the imposition of port state measures by WTO members to prevent illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, although both cases were settled before reaching Panel stage. Port state measures aim to combat IUU fishing by allowing countries to close their ports to IUU fish. This includes using trade measures and trade-related measures, such as import bans and transshipment bans, which may violate WTO law. The potential for conflict is even more acute now that the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) has come into force. This paper takes as its studyFaroes–Herring, where the Faroes challenged certain EU regulations aimed at preventing IUU fishing through the use of port state measures. It examines whether these regulations comply with WTO law, and makes recommendations as to how a Panel or Appellate Body can resolve this type of dispute. Specifically, it focuses on ways in which international fisheries law can be incorporated in this process to avoid a conflict between international trade and fisheries law.

The Security Challenges of the “One Belt, One Road” Initiative and China’s Choices

Abstract The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives (“One Belt, One Road”) are of significance in enhancing China’s open economy. This article explores the dual security challenges faced by the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. These challenges include both traditional security challenges, such as great power competition, territorial and island disputes, and political turmoil in the region, as well as non-traditional threats such as terrorism, piracy, and transnational organized crime. This article analyzes the present situation of security cooperation in the region covered by “One Belt, One Road” and also suggests that China needs to pay special attention to three issues, namely the supply of public security goods, the interests of the United States and Russia, and the pivot of Pakistan, besides developing its own strength.

Sub- and Trans-National Actors in South Korea's Island Disputes: The Cases of Dokdo and Iŏdo

This paper provides a political analysis on two territorial disputes that South Korea has with Japan over Dokdo/Takeshima and with China over Iŏdo/Suyan Rocks, as well as on their implications for the Northeast Asia region, focusing on the roles of sub-state actors and the United States as a third party trans-national actor. It mainly explores why South Koreans consider territorial claims by Japan and China such an affront as to require strident demonstration of ownership, especially since they already exercise effective control over the territories under dispute. It also explores what actions the South Korean government would take in the event of maneuvers or attempted landings by security forces or nationalists/fishing boats from China on Iŏdo or Japan on Dokdo. Employing Robert Putnam's Two Level Game Framework, the paper provides comparative insights on how these cases have been developed to date through interactions between Level I, official negotiators, and Level II, sub- and trans-national actors. The two cases demonstrate that the state is not a unified actor, and non-state actors' nationalistic collective sentiment has played (and will play) a greater role in shaping the directions of (potential) conflicts over Dokdo and Iŏdo.

China's Assertiveness in the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands Dispute

This paper examines China’s behavior in the dispute with Japan over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands. Before 2010, China adopted a low-key approach to the dispute. After 2010, however, China chose to escalate the dispute, first in response to Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing vessel in September 2010 and then in response to the Japanese government’s purchase of three of the islands in September 2012. China escalated because Japan’s actions challenged China’s relatively weak position in the dispute. By escalating, China could counter Japanese actions and strengthen its position in the dispute. Since late 2013, the dispute appears to have stabilized. China’s patrols within twelve nautical miles of the islands have strengthened its position in the dispute, while Japan has refrained from developing the islands.

Japan’s Changing Defense Posture and Security Relations in East Asia

Japan’s Diet passed new defense legislation in 2015. It reinterprets the constitutional clause renouncing the threat or use of force (except to repel an attack on Japan) to allow collective self-defense and permit expanded roles for the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. The government presents these changes as consistent with Japan’s traditional postwar defense posture, vital to support allied deterrence of threats against Japan, and necessary to enhance Japan’s security in a region of shifting power. This article disputes these claims. Rather, the new laws (1) signal a strategic shift away from the Yoshida Doctrine by reinterpreting the constitution, (2) fail to generate new U.S. commitments or strengthen preexisting ones that enhance Japan’s security, and (3) risk exacerbating the Sino-Japanese security dilemma. This is because the changes are occurring alongside the Senkaku Islands dispute, which raises strategic mistrust, and they revise the alliance to give Japan a greater role in regional security, which China has historically seen as a future threat. When taken together, these under appreciated effects of the new laws may help the alliance endure and let Japan support the regional status quo in the long term, but will likely decrease Japanese security in the short term by prompting a defensive Chinese response. We show how the recent history of East Asia’s security dilemma and IR theory both cast doubt on the ability of the new laws to generate security for Japan.

Diaoyu Dao, Diaoyutai or Senkaku? Creative solutions to a festering dispute in the East China Sea from an ‘Island Studies’ perspective

AbstractThis paper draws on extensive island examples with a view to offer ‘creative’ solutions to the ongoing dispute over the Diaoyu/Diaoyutai/ Senkaku Islands between China (and Taiwan) and Japan in the East China Sea. In spite of the rhetoric and apparent intractability of island conflicts, there are various examples from the past (and the present) that suggest how island disputes may be decided, and in ‘win–win’ ways, to the satisfaction of the different parties involved. The resolution of island territorial problems can benefit greatly from a critical appreciation of how other small islands, also contested, have had their situation resolved in non‐zero‐sum ways. In such cases, sovereignty has been shared, split/divided or expunged; in other cases, sovereignty disputes have been put aside in order to co‐develop and co‐exploit natural resources. There is also one example of a UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of a string of small islands and surrounding waters whose management is shared between three countries.

Identity, contact, and the reduction of mutual distrust: a survey of Chinese and Japanese youth

ABSTRACTIn the midst of rising tension between China and Japan, two powerful countries in Asia, the favorable attitudes of each country's citizens toward the other country have dropped to a historical low. The Taiwan issue, historical legacy, island disputes, and maritime resource competition are major obstacles in Sino-Japanese relations, but the most fundamental issue is a deep-seated mutual distrust and suspicion between the two countries, which result in rising threat perceptions. Beyond the structural and political elite-centered approaches, this study examines the evidence related to the three approaches (face-to-face contact, cross-cultural exposure, and social identity) to reduce mutual distrust and antipathy in the two countries. With a careful analysis of the survey data, this study sheds light on the conditions under which contact (a) results in improved attitudes toward outgroup, (b) has little or no effect on intergroup relations, and (c) yields more prejudice and hostility toward the outgroup. The findings of this study not only identify factors that could facilitate mutual understanding between Chinese and Japanese people and more favorable impressions of one another, but are also relevant to planning interventions to reduce prejudice and distrust among people from different races, religions, and countries.

Is the Archipelago a Political Tool?

The dispute over sovereignty in the Falkland Islands (called Islas Malvinas in the Spanishspeaking world) between Argentina and Great Britain has lasted for nearly two hundred years. The archipelago has been a British territory since 1833, when the crew of HMS ‘Clio’ forcibly took over the islands, which had previously belonged to Argentina. The Argentine people have never accepted this loss and have since been trying to reclaim the territory, with no further effect. The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of the Falkland Islands dispute in Argentine domestic and foreign policy during the presidencies of Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015). The thesis of this paper is that the Falklands became a crucial factor in shaping Argentine policy during the Kirchner era, not only on the international level, but also within the country.

Reconsidering the Paracel Islands Dispute: An International Law Perspective

The Paracel Islands dispute has recently resurfaced as a source of conflict between Vietnam and China, who both claim sovereignty over the islands from ‘time immemorial’. This article re-examines their respective claims from an international law perspective. It also focuses on delineating the respective claims with emphasis on sovereignty, territory and self-determination. Based on available sources, this article suggests that Vietnam appears to have a more credible sovereignty claim over the Paracel Islands vis-à-vis China. Having thus assumed Vietnamese sovereignty, this article then sets out to explore the maritime zones that Vietnam would be entitled to under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Citizen attitudes towards China's maritime territorial disputes: traditional media and Internet usage as distinctive conduits of political views in China

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the differential impact of Chinese citizens’ use of traditional media and Internet sources on their political views about the country’s territorial dispute with Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. Chinese citizens can utilize a variety of conduits of information that allow varying degrees of government control over the way foreign affairs and other controversies are presented. Those who rely on mainstream, state-controlled television, radio, and printed media for information on the disputes, and those who turn to less-prescriptive sources on the Internet, can be expected to have distinctive political attitudes. We use original 2013 Chinese survey data to explore patterns of media consumption and citizens’ attention levels towards the Sino-Japanese island dispute, and views regarding the government’s performance in handling the issue and appropriate policy responses. Those who derive their information from traditional media tend to view the government’s performance more positively, and are more likely both to favour compromise and to oppose the use of military force. By comparison, information from Internet sources, which is more user selfselective, sustains a wider range of attitudes about the Sino-Japanese island dispute and the appropriate policies for dealing with it, including both militaristic and moderate stances. All told, we find that Chinese citizens bring distinctive predispositions to their consumption of media information on this issue, but our results also clearly reflect an ongoing, pervasive influence for China’s state-run traditional media. These findings have important implications for considering the resilience of authoritarian systems in the Internet era.

China in the Indian Ocean Region

China has been experiencing major transformation in its naval strategy and capacity. Starting off in the late 1980s with rapid naval modernisation, China’s naval operation gradually shifts from the overwhelming ‘near seas’ to the more challenging ‘far seas’. This task is not an easy one. Whilst in the ‘near seas’ China has been enjoying relatively naval superiority, naval operations in the ‘far seas’ is more demanding. Assessing China’s naval capability in three areas of naval forces, naval activities and presence, and overseas naval bases throws a light on the discrepancy between actual capability and intention. Three reasons lend explanation for the hurdles China faces in implementing the ‘far-seas operations’. First, China is preoccupied with the geopolitical struggle in the ‘near seas’, namely, Taiwan, Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute in East China Sea, and the South China Sea dispute. Second, China is confronted with the ‘Malacca dilemma’ that shoves it to rethink its naval ambition. Third, the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) already has two major players, the United States and India, with which China has to struggle to pursue its interests. The three reasons combined with lack of naval capability to accommodate an effective ‘far-seas operations’ are accountable for China’s confined strategy in the IOR.

SOVEREIGNTY VS INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION: MAJOR PROBLEMS FACING EAST ASIA AT PRESENT

World is now becoming united in which international community cannot live independently. The sovereignty of every States in the world cannot walk alone without having taken into consideration on the others States’ need and sovereignty. There are important issues of state sovereignty vs. international cooperation in regard of some grave problems facing our region, East Asia and even the world beyond. Among these issues are. the island disputes, humanitarian intervention, TPP and trade and economic integration in general, including RCEP advocated by Indonesia, also global warming. All of these issues cannot be solved without international cooperation. Thus international cooperation is a must in the borderless era as we are experiencing today.

Rewriting the Legacy of Chiang Kai-shek on the Diaoyu Islands: Chiang's Ryukyu policies from the 1930s to the 1970s

The intensifying disputes between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands today have reminded both academia and the general public of the Ryukyu problem. Reportedly, during the Cairo Conference in 1943, Chiang Kai-shek let slip opportunities to recover the Ryukyus, which later resulted in Japanese control of the Diaoyu Islands. Until now, scholarship has maintained that Chiang narrowly missed regaining Okinawa at Cairo, which never again appeared on his agenda. However, a more nuanced historical account can be found in rarely accessed primary resources such as Chiang's diaries and presidential papers, which yield a different conclusion—that he was, in fact, committed to the Ryukyu issue throughout his political career. However, Chiang lost multiple opportunities to resolve the issue as a result of competition with his communist rival, the security dynamics of the Cold War, and his personality. Chiang eventually failed to stop America from returning the Ryukyus to Japan, which, thereafter, generated the Diaoyu Islands disputes and continues to serve as a primary source of nationalist friction today in Sino–Japanese relations.

Impact of political dispute on international trade based on an international trade Inoperability Input-Output Model: A case study of the 2012 Diaoyu Islands Dispute

While political disputes occur frequently and widely among many countries, their impact on the international trade is unclear and less systematically investigated. Considering the 2012 Diaoyu Islands Dispute, under several premised assumptions, this paper applies the international trade Inoperability Input-Output Model to determine the indirect economic loss and to screen out Chinese industries that are sensitive to the dispute. Results based on Leontief's technical coefficients matrix show that the total indirect economic loss of China's gross trade is between RMB 540.4226 billion and RMB 1023.3068 billion. Industries that are sensitive to the dispute include electrical equipment and machinery, general special equipment manufacturing, metal smelting and rolling processing, manufacture and processing of metals and metal products, and chemical. The empirical findings suggest that China establish an early-warning mechanism and trade assistance system, so that key industries that were damaged could be properly compensated.