Final Post: Asian Territorial Disputes

            This semester, my group focused on two territorial disputes, both involving China. As China has become a world power, it seems to want to expand its territorial reach, not just its economic reach. This has led to disputes with Japan and, to a lesser extent, Vietnam.  Making an already bad situation worse, members of the Japanese government visited a shrine which includes war criminals. As you may know, Japan brutally attacked China just before the Second World War began. This visit to the shrine flamed old tensions, especially over a small group of islands known as both the Senkaku (the Japanese name) and Diaoyu (the Chinese name) islands. Thankfully, both China and Japan have refrained from escalating the conflict to physical violence, and have shown signs of willingness to begin diplomatic discussions. A similar dispute has been ongoing for 45 years between China and Vietnam. As this situation was less serious, our group did not focus on it as much. However, the basic story is the same: in 1968, the area around the disputed islands were said to contain natural resources, sparking the interest of the Chinese. Much like the situation with Japan, there have been no recent armed conflicts, although small nations around China are becoming more and more worried about China's attempted power grabs.

           Lucky for us, our group included a student who is Vietnamese, Gwen, and a student from China, Yukun. Both Gwen and Yukun were able to explain the situation as seen by the people, and not the government. Most of our research was internet based, using news articles from sources such as the New York Times, the Diplomat, and the BBC. We were also able to use some documents through the United States government, the United Nations and the Asia Society. Almost every week, our group met to discuss research, and synthesize that research into one blog post. Often, sources were posted to one Google Document, so that each member of the group was able to access the same information. 

The most important thing I learned from working on this blog was to examine my sources for bias, and understanding where it came from. For example, the New York Times tended to be more pro-Japanese, as America has stronger diplomatic ties with Japan. As an International Studies major focusing on the Asian region, this topic was, I feel, a great way to examine the dynamics of Asian states both with each other and the United States. Also, the group dynamic was new. As opposed to previous groups I have worked in, we were still able to get a lot done, even if we did not meet in person that week, because of the technology we were using. I think the various scheduling of meetings forced me to become more flexible, and definitely better at time management. Overall, I learned a lot from my group and topic.