East Asian Territorial Disputes Final Post

 Throughout the semester my group covered East Asian territorial disputes, particularly those involving the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands (China/Japan) and the Spratly and Parcel Islands (China/Vietnam). Both of these disputes are as mired in historical claims as they are in nationalism. China and Japan have been snipping at each other's heels over incidents involving the islands, such as when the Japanese government bought three of the Senkakus from a private owner, sparking massive protests and calls to boycott Japanese products in China. China has also drawn ire for declaring an air defense identification zone around the East China Sea, which includes the Senkakus and other islands in that region that China claims are theirs. The tensions between China and Japan on this issue are so thick that another World War is feared to be eminent. In the South China Sea, China has repeatedly imposed fishing bans and expelled foreign ships, especially those from Vietnam.

We mainly used newspaper articles for our research; the articles came from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and BBC News. We also used the foreign policy blog The Diplomat. In the first post, we used a Congressional Research report (“Maritime Territorial Disputes in East Asia: Issues for Congress”) that broadly covered the East Asian territorial disputes, including each country's historical reasoning for these claims, the islands that are under claim by various countries, and ways to (peacefully) end the disputes. As for creating a post, we collected a bunch of relevant articles that we found, read them for relevancy/quality, and summarized the best ones. For the second post, each group member wrote a paragraph on at least two articles out of the collection. I think this approach made sure that everyone had a hand in the research and writing process, as well as a general idea of what was happening with our topic. Usually, our group met every Tuesday at 5pm, either to find articles or draft up a post.

From our topic, I learned that the disputes mostly revolve around history- who laid claim to which island first, who took which island from whom, how an island was present in a country's history, etc. China also seemed to be the common link to all the disputes, which is possibly a reflection of its increasing military power. I also found that writing the post together (with one person typing and the others dictating) made more sense than each person editing and adding to the post by themselves at home. It gave the posts a consistent tone. The same could be said of all the parties involved in the East Asian territorial disputes, but hopefully the tone will change from one of belligerence to one of cooperation.