Asia: Region riven by disputed terrain

Two days after Japan was struck by last month’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, Beijing sent a rescue team of 15 people to help its stricken neighbour. It was the first time Tokyo had accepted such a mission from China.

The fact that the dispatch of even such a modest-sized crew was considered unusual highlights the deep historical animosities – often manifested in territorial clashes – that plague large parts of east and central Asia. This year has brought a spate of military exchanges of fire across the Thai-Cambodian border, which worsened on Tuesday.

As heightened tension became a feature of 2010, Japan was taken aback by what it felt was aggressive Chinese action over islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. The “Senkaku shock” started last September when a Chinese fishing vessel rammed a Japanese patrol boat in waters around the disputed islands.

It escalated when Japan refused to release the Chinese captain, prompting what Tokyo said was a de facto ban on the export of rare earths from China, needed by Japanese industry. Yoichi Funabashi, a diplomatic expert, described the incident as the worst blow to Japanese diplomacy in 40 years.

The worst incident last year was the March sinking of a South Korean naval vessel with the loss of 46 lives. An international inquiry found North Korea responsible. In November, Pyongyang’s troops fired on an island in disputed waters, killing four South Koreans.

Such tensions are far from academic. The US has pledged to defend the Senkaku islands as part of its treaty relations with Tokyo. It has troops stationed in South Korea. Washington has also long acted as a final arbiter of Taiwan’s security, while Beijing has backed its claim to the self-governed island with threats of war.

Although tension across the Taiwan Strait has cooled, several other regional flashpoints have become hotter, for two related reasons.

First, a “risen China” is more confident about pressing its claims. Some Chinese scholars have begun to refer to the South China Sea as a “core national interest”, putting it into potential conflict with several countries with competing claims, including Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. Second, Washington has sought to reassert its presence, producing a Beijing pushback.

David Pilling : Why China and Japan are oceans apart