2. Maritime Territorial Disputes: China and its Neighbours

Panel convenors: Bertel Heurlin, Dept. of Political Science, University of Copenhagen and Liu Chunrong, Fudan European China Centre

Recently the Asian region has experienced heavy bilateral crises concerning national territorial claims between China and its neighbours at sea, including serious mutual accusations and threats. Old disputes on which island belongs to which country have re-emerged and have created a sense of threats to stability and security in the area of the waters around China.

This panel attempts to explore, understand and explain these processes and their impact on bilateral relations and on the general stability in Asia. Papers could for example focus on:

• the security-economy nexus between China and the countries involved
• the role of the rise of hyper-nationalism as part of the territorial disputes
• the risk of military escalation
• the territorial conflict as bureaucratic politics
• the role of bilateral versus multilateral politics
• the role of political and military doctrines

Behind the individual papers the panel attempts to approach the following fundamental questions:

• Why do we have these territorial disputes now?
• How can the current Chinese policy be explained?
• How can we assess and explain the role of the United States, the strongest Asian military power?