China's Territorial Disputes

Domestic Politics, International Bargaining and China’s Territorial Disputes

This book is a groundbreaking analysis of China’s territorial disputes, exploring the successes and failures of negotiations that have taken place between China and its neighbors, namely India, Japan, Russia, and countries in Southeast Asia. By using Robert Putnam’s two-level game framework, Chung relates the outcome of these disputes to the actions of domestic nationalist groups who have exploited these territorial issues to further their own objectives. By using first-class empirical data and applying it to existing theoretical concepts,
Domestic Politics, International Bargaining and China's Territorial Disputes
provides a detailed account of China’s land and maritime border disputes that is both clear and accessible. This book will be a very valuable resource for anyone interested in international relations, politics and the security of China and the Asia-Pacific.

Chien-peng Chung
is a Research Fellow at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto.

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Domestic Politics, International Bargaining and China’s Territorial Disputes

Chien-peng Chung

Domestic Politics, International Bargaining and China’s Territorial Disputes

Chien-peng Chung

First published 2004

l! New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

29 West 35?h Street，New York, NY 10001

RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition publishea in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.

© 2004 Chien-peng Chung

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-203-60046-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-34513-4 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-33366-0
(Print Edition)

For my wife, Hua

It is not worthwhile remembering that past which cannot become a present.

Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher

What we face today ... is the reality that almost any past, worthwhile or not, can become a present if remembered and recounted with a vengeance.

Charles Hill, political scientist

Illustrations

Figures

2.1    Effects of reducing win-set size for two-issue negotiations

3.1    The East China Sea

4.1    The Amur-Ussuri boundary between China and the    USSR

4.2    The Amur-Ussuri junction

4.3    Sino-Soviet trade, 1950-1989

5.1    The eastern China-India frontier

5.2    The western China-India frontier

6.1    The South China Sea

Table

4.1    Sino-Soviet trade volume, 1950-1989

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr Stanley Rosen, Dr Steven I. Levine, and an anonymous reviewer for their useful comments in the task of writing this book.

1 Introduction

Importance of topic

The study of the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China, especially with regard to its ties with neighboring countries with which it shares a common land or maritime border, is important in many aspects. As we enter the twenty-first century, we will encounter a China that is rapidly growing both economically and militarily, and which may once again assert its dominance against neighboring countries, as it has done in ages past. With the end of superpower dominance after the Cold War, we also face an Asia-Pacific region that is in strategic flux but is of increasing economic importance, not only to the United States, but also to Japan and the countries of the European Union. After the recovery of sovereignty over Hong Kong on 30 June 1997, China still has a few territorial claims against its neighbors. These territories were considered by the Chinese to have been detached from their country through a series of “unequal” treaties forced on it in the last century by Russia, Japan, and European imperialist powers, then also colonizing neighboring South and Southeast Asia. These so-called “unequal” treaties were immediately repudiated when the Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949, which had the effect of placing in limbo the legal status of many stretches of China’s international boundary. With the rise of Chinese nationalism and consequent irredentist claims, the stability and prosperity of countries in the Asia-Pacific region may be just as easily reassured or destabilized by China’s domestic stability and foreign policy behavior. Hence the unresolved land and maritime boundary disputes of China as the largest country in Asia have the potential to become a major cause of instability, not only for countries against which China has territorial claims, but also for their trading partners and military allies. So saying, I believe it is timely to focus on these disputes, by tracking their initiation, aggravation, continuation and possible settlement.