As a region, Asia has witnessed more territorial disputes, and more armed conflicts over disputed territory, than any other region in the world. In 2000, Asia also accounted for almost 40 percent of all active territorial disputes worldwide.
By M. Taylor Fravel
Associate Professor of Political Science Security Studies Program, MIT
Territorial
disputes involve a state’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity—its
core interests. Historically, they have been the most common issue over which
states collide and go to war. Since 1945, Asia has been more prone to conflict
over territory and maritime boundaries than other regions in the world. Asia
accounts for the greatest number of disputes over territory that have become
militarized and that have escalated into interstate wars.
Disputes in Asia have
also been resistant to settlement, accounting for the lowest rate of settlement
when compared with other regions. Most importantly, Asia today has far more
territorial disputes than any other part of the world. When combined with the
rise of new powers, which are involved in multiple territorial disputes, such
conflicts are poised to become an increasing source of tension and instability
in the region.
As a region,
Asia has witnessed more territorial disputes, and more armed conflicts over
disputed territory, than any other region in the world. In 2000, Asia also
accounted for almost 40 percent of all active territorial disputes worldwide.
This article examines these claims using a data set that was created by Paul
Huth and his collaborators (Allee and Huth 2006a; Allee and Huth 2006b; Huth
1996a; Huth and Allee 2002). This data allows for the comparison of overall
trends in cooperation and conflict in territorial disputes across regions.
Subsequent sections will examine Asia more closely and extend the timeframe of
analysis from 2000 to 2012. Consistent with this volume, Asia as a region
includes Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia.
A comparison of
trends in Asia’s territorial dispute with other regions of the world is
revealing. First, between 1945 and 2000, Asia experienced more territorial
disputes than any other part of the world. As Table One shows, Asia accounts
for 28 percent of all disputes during this period. In absolute terms, Asia’s
share of worldwide territorial disputes is partly an artifact of the large
numbers of states in the region, and thus increased opportunities for conflict
over territory. Nevertheless, the high incidence of territorial disputes cannot
be attributed solely to this. During this same period, Sub-Saharan Africa has
had slightly more states than Asia, but 7 accounts for only 18 percent of worldwide
territorial disputes. In addition, Asia has had the highest number of disputes
per state (roughly 2), along with the Middle East and North Africa.
Table One / Source:
Huth Territorial Dispute Data-set. Militarized disputes exclude those that
escalated to “wars.” “Settlements” includes those that were reached through
arbitration.
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Second, Asia has
experienced more armed conflict over territory than any other region. As Table
One demonstrates, Asia accounts for 34 percent of territorial disputes
worldwide that have become militarized. Put differently, more than half of
territorial disputes in Asia have experienced the threat or use of force and
become what scholars of international relations describe as a militarized
interstate dispute (Jones, Bremer and Singer 1996). Moreover, militarized
disputes over territory in Asia were much more likely to result in an
interstate war than such disputes in other regions, with the exception of the
Middle East and North Africa. Asia accounts for about 33 percent of all
interstate wars over territory from 1945 to 2000, as more than one quarter of
the region’s militarized disputes escalated into wars.
Third,
territorial disputes in Asia have been more resistant to settlement than those
in other regions. Asia accounts for only 20 percent of all territorial disputes
that were settled between 1945 and 2000, while the Middle East and North Africa
account for the greatest number of settlements. Put differently, only 42
percent of territorial disputes in Asia were settled during this period. The
use of international arbitration as a mechanism for resolving territorial
disputes in Asia is similar to other regions. The Americas, the Middle East and
Asia each account for around 24 percent of settlements reached through some
form of arbitration. Interestingly, despite being the most institutionalized
region in the world, Europe has had the fewest number of disputes settled
through arbitration.
Finally, by
2000, Asia accounted for 38 percent of all unresolved territorial disputes in
the world. The region with the second highest number of active disputes, Africa
with 13, had roughly half as many disputes as Asia. If the territorial disputes
are associated with armed conflict and war, the large number of unresolved
disputes in the region should concern scholars and policymakers alike.
One important
housekeeping note is necessary before proceeding. For the purposes of
comparison, the analysis above uses Huth’s data without any alterations or
amendments in order to ensure consistent comparisons across regions. The
analysis below presents a more detailed review of disputes in Asia. As a
result, it includes some disputes that were not in Huth’s data and extends the
scope of analysis by 12 years, from 2000 to 2012, to capture additional
episodes of escalation and settlement. As a result, the total number of
disputes, militarized episodes, and settlements will differ from the data
presented above.
About The Author:
M. Taylor Fravel is Associate Professor of Political Science
and member of the Security Studies Program at MIT. Taylor is a graduate of
Middlebury College and Stanford University, where he received his PhD. He has
been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at
Harvard University, a Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for International
Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, a Fellow with the
Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program and a Visiting Scholar at the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also has graduate degrees from the
London School of Economics and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes
Scholar. In March 2010, he was named Research Associate with the National Asia Research
Program launched by the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow
Wilson International Center.
Cite this
Article:
Fravel, M.
Taylor. Territorial and Maritime Boundary Disputes in Asia. In Saadia M.
Pekkanen, John Ravenhill, and Rosemary Foot (Eds.). Oxford handbook of the
International Relations in Asia (chapter 27). New York, NY: Oxford University
Press, [2014].,
Publication Details:
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