China's Approach Towards Territorial Disputes: Lessons and Prospects

Lessons and Prospects

Sana Hashmi

• Publisher: KW Publishers
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9789386147820
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Controllo degli armamenti

China's territorial disputes have been a matter of debate since the 1950s. While China has amicably resolved boundary disputes with 12 out of 14 neighbouring countries, it is yet to resolve its boundary disputes with India and Bhutan as also its two martime disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea. Given that the prediction for the settlement of China's remaining disputes is largely doubtful, this book investigates the reasons for differences in Chinese behaviour with India. China's boundary dispute with India is a subject of deliberation and it remains to be seen whether China plans to devise its 'boundary diplomacy' with a country as huge and strong as India.

1

Defining Territories and Territorial Disputes in the Chinese Context

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Introduction

Territory is one of the principal pillars on which the ‘modern state’ stands. Countries across the world today are shaped by the tools known as boundaries and frontiers. The origin of the word territory is from a Latin word territorium, whereas the origin of the word boundary can be traced back to the early 17th century. While territory is an area under a ruler or a state’s jurisdiction, a boundary can be defined in the simplest possible terms as a line between two sovereign states¹ or as the imaginary line which divides two pieces of land from one another.² A frontier is an area with length and width and, therefore, merely indicates, without fixing the exact limit, where one state ends and another begins.³ Interestingly, ever since the modern state came into being, disagreements over territories have become a prime matter of difference between them, often leading to conflict, violent or otherwise. Highlighting the significance of territory, Alex Murphy argues, “The centre of a state’s national identity revolves around the notion of territory.” He points out that “territory is frequently a source of conflict because the state is fundamentally a place; its very existence and autonomy are rooted in territory… territory provides a tangible basis for the exercise of state power by delimiting the human and physical resources over which the state has some control… succinctly put, territory is at the heart of national identity and cohesion.”⁴ In other words, it may be said that territory determines the state, and the state defines the territory.

In order to have a detailed and comprehensive study of boundary disputes between states, it is imperative to differentiate boundary disputes from territorial claims. As A. Oye Cukwurah points out, “While in the latter case, the salient aspects of the part of the international law are to be found in the traditional rules relating to the acquisition of territorial sovereignty by discovery, occupation, conquest, cession or prescription; boundary disputes largely raise issues concerned with boundary-making”. He affirms that whereas all boundary disputes are territorial questions in a wider sense; territorial claims are not always subsumed under the category of boundary claims.⁵ In the 20th and 21st centuries, territorial conflicts have centred upon six types of disputes:⁶

• Disputes between states over competing claims to their homeland territory;
• Disputes between two states with competing claims to the homeland territory of one state and the overseas territory of the other state;
• Disputes between two states whose competing claims involve the overseas territory of both sides;
• Disputes between an existing state and an aspiring new state that seeks to establish its independence by seceding from the homeland territory of the existing state;
• Disputes in which political units within the colonial overseas empire of a state seek to establish and be recognised as independent states; and
• Disputes between states that centre on claims on territorial rights to waters or land along the seabed.

Clearly, territorial sovereignty, of which boundary disputes are a narrower offshoot, has always been a predominant factor in international politics. Approximately one-third of the world’s land boundaries could be classified as unstable and trapped in overlapping claims. Most of these conflicts are also a result of global geo-political changes in the recent past.⁷ However, just as conflicts are natural among the states over the extent of expanse and control over the territory, so are boundary dispute resolutions. It is important to note that “boundaries must be drawn so as to include all of the territory of the sovereign state. The purpose of a boundary is . . . to mark in no unmistakable manner the limit of the territory in which the state exercises its sovereign power with all the trappings which that exercise carries with it.”⁸ Living together peacefully is not a choice but a compulsion for states to survive. Therefore, sovereign states have learned to coexist through centuries.

A boundary dispute resolution mechanism involves three steps, namely:

• Defining the boundary;
• Delimitation of the boundary; and
• Demarcation of the boundary.

That there would be differences in perception with respect to a disputed territory or a line of control between two states is an established fact, witnessed without exception. It is in this context that the first step towards boundary dispute resolution is considered as defining the disputed boundary by the governments of the states involved in the dispute, in order to have a mutually agreeable boundary between them. The second step in the process is delimitation of the disputed boundary. This step commences when the states in disagreement agree to divide the boundary that was defined through mutual agreement. A. Henry McMahon defines delimitation as “determining a boundary line by a treaty or otherwise, and its definition in written, verbal terms”.⁹ Demarcation is the third and the final step in the boundary dispute resolution process. According to McMahon, the process of demarcation involves the actual laying down of a boundary line on the ground and its definition by boundary pillars or other similar physical markings.¹⁰

China: A Major Player in the Asian Territorial Disputes

Given that Europe was the centre of boundary disputes in the 17th century, where the modern nation-states came into being for the first time, the need to effectively deal with such issues was also felt there strongly. In fact, the concept of territorial sovereignty has its roots in the notion of the Westphalian States. The Treaty of Westphalia (October 1648) was the watershed moment in that regard, as after the treaty, it was acknowledged that boundaries drawn around territory circumscribed a single political and legal unit over which the state had sovereignty.¹¹ However, in the contemporary times, the focus of attention has shifted from Europe to Asia. From the second half of the 20th century, Asia increasingly became the ground for intense boundary disputes, with China playing the lead role in the maximum number of conflicts over territories—the trend is only intensifying in the 21st century.

History as the basis of claiming territories has generally been the most common phenomenon for centuries. Since the end of World War II, boundary disputes with neighbouring states have almost always been on the basis of historical claims and justified as attempts to recover land that had been “wrongfully” taken away.¹² China is no exception to this raison d’être. The Government of China, on taking power in 1949, declared that it would reexamine treaties concluded by its predecessors with foreign powers, and either “reorganise, abrogate, revise or renegotiate them”.¹³ The Chinese explain most of their claims of sovereignty by saying that territory has been illegally taken away from them through “unequal treaties” by foreign powers during the “Century of Humiliation” and now they are reclaiming it in order to reunify it with the Chinese motherland. Therefore, one of the most important legacies inherited by the new government was the relatively ill-defined boundary of China.¹⁴ This logic has made it easier to understand how and why several conflicts had arisen between China and its neighbouring countries.

China has long been embroiled in several territorial disputes, occasionally flexing its military muscle over the issue and its conduct in such situations has been of great theoretical and practical relevance that has attracted considerable attention from scholars across the socio-legal spectrum.¹⁵ While China had boundary disputes with virtually all of its neighbours, it was inclined to avoid confrontation, notably of a military nature, and generally preferred to pursue its goals in an orderly fashion, readily engaging in give-and-take via formal and informal channels, provided it did not entail submission to third-party judgment; nor did it persistently signal its opposition to well-established international legal principles, but, instead, often acted in accordance with them.¹⁶ As Roda Mushkat explains:

Chinese boundary disputes are manifold and have deep historical roots. Some, but not all, have been resolved, yet not necessarily in a manner that might have been anticipated. Given the international prominence of the parties involved, notably China, the ramifications of actions taken and refrained from, the not-easy-to-read policy signals, and the elaborate strategic maneuvers, this is a subject that merits careful scholarly attention. Students of international law have responded to the challenge by exploring it broadly and consistently. The largely traditional orientation of those involved in the enterprise has left some inevitable gaps and social scientists have stepped into the breach.¹⁷

With China rising on the international stage and gaining prominence in the global political and economic domains, its boundary disputes with neighbours also have gained the world’s attention. China’s situation gets more precarious in the light of the fact that in the history of major power politics, no other major power has been entangled in disputes of this nature.

China’s Perception of “Century of Humiliation” and “Unequal Treaties”

The rise of China has been one of the prime features of the 20th century and is a continuing process in the 21st century. While China has been stepping on the path of inevitable rise, it has also found itself caught in a wide array of boundary questions along its borders, involving almost all of its neighbours. When the PRC was established under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the Chinese leadership decided to undergo a prolonged task of establishing smooth, cordial relations with the immediate neighbours and beyond. That was the time when Mao initiated a policy of Good Neighbourliness (Mulin Youhao Zhengce) for the first time. However, as it turned out, the biggest stumbling block in smoothening relations with neighbours was China’s geography itself. China is a country with an intricate physical geography and even more complex borders. It shares land borders with 14 sovereign states and is landlocked from three sides. Apart from China, Russia, that is located towards the northwest of China, also shares international borders with 14 nation-states. No other country except China and Russia shares international borders with as many countries. When the PRC was established, it acquired boundary disputes with all its immediate neighbours. To justify its claims, China maintains that the imperialist forces forcefully took territories, which were a part of the Qing Empire, away from the Chinese Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. After the decline of the Chinese Empire in the 19th century, the Western powers not only took over many of China’s tributaries, but also pushed the frontiers forward into areas that China itself would have preferred to control, and those new frontiers were often institutionalised in what China called “unequal treaties”.¹⁸

The late 18th and the 19th century have been dramatic for the Chinese civilisation in more ways than one. China, under the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), was an isolated country. Qing China was willing to engage with other civilisations only within the res...