Quelle importance géopolitique doit-on accorder aux litiges territoriaux et maritimes?

1. CONTEXT

With an area of over 3.5 million square kilometers, the South China Sea occupies a strategic position and plays an extremely important role in maritime activities in the region and the world. With hundreds of islands, islets and reefs, considerable reserves of fisheries and oil - between 20 and 200 million barrels of oil when Saudi reserves are estimated at 260 million barrels - this area is of interest important in terms of security and economic strategy, not only for the States directly concerned, but also for many others in the region. It is also a hotbed of tension between coastal States and conflicts of territorial sovereignty increasing at an alarming rate.

2. STAKES

This region, real hub of world trade has offset the global economic activity to Asia with the Strait of Malacca (according to French National Centre for Scientific Research, 70,000 ships passed through the Straits of Malacca in 2011) and the straits between Malaysia and Indonesia.

Although these islands are uninhabited, they are object of all desire, because they are surrounded by very well stocked fishing areas, but mainly because their seabed may contain hydrocarbons. This is the delimitation of exclusive economic zones - seazone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind - and the exploitation of hydrocarbons, which are played behind this territorial dispute.

In addition, the location of these islands is strategic for the Chinese navy, which considers the South China Sea as a "zone of vital interest." But Tokyo notes with concern the Chinese military expansion and the expression of its ambitions to the confines of its maritime territory.

3. ACTORS

a. China

The claimed islands are important to the Chinese for two complementary reasons: first, their geostrategic position and then they give access to hydrocarbon resources.

One of the challenges of China is to acquire an exclusive economic zone that is more extensive and allows them to eventually lead to the deep sea. China can almost appear as a landlocked state because his coasts are on China seas and because the archipelagos in front do not depend on China. Since 1982, according to the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the sea, China claims sovereignty over approximately 3.2 million km2 in the Pacific Ocean. Under the same convention, the countries that control the southern islands of the South China Sea obtain de facto sovereign rights over approximately 8 million square kilometers.

China has become the second largest importer of oil (according to the newspaper Jinghua Shibao, China imported 271 million tons of oil in 2012): the access to resources has become vital to keep its energy intensive economy on track.

Control these islands would allow Beijing to access to near, easy and vast fossil resources.

b. Japan

Located 90 nautical miles west of Okinawa and 120 miles north of Taiwan, the Senkaku-Diaoyu consists of five uninhabited islands, the largest of which is only 3.5 km2 and other few dozen hectares. Japan annexed the Senkaku in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War. At the end of World War II, the islands were under U.S. administration before being returned to Japan in 1972, after an agreement that does not mention them explicitly.

Since 1971, Taiwan (de facto independent territory, but China claims sovereignty) and the People's Republic of China are claiming sovereignty over these islands.

If Japan failed from tensions of China, the risk is that there will be no limits to the ambitions of China on other territories in South China Sea. Other Asian countries and the United States have no interest in Japan to fail.

c. United States of America

An actor is not from the area but has a significant role: the USA. The redirection in U.S. strategy towards the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the visit of President Barack Obama in this region, show the interest but also the anxiety aroused by the (re) birth of the Chinese navy.

The most everyday and most essential action of the U.S. military presence in the world is the police of the seas, and therefore the monitoring of waterways and the ensuring that the straits are perfectly usable by all. The Strait of Malacca, and everything related to it, is considered as a vital interest for the United States: direct interest for the transit of goods, but it is also there that their credibility of dominant maritime power is at stake. Facing difficulties, the U.S. economy has also in the Asia-Pacific region significant opportunities, as noted by Richard N. Haass - President of the Council of Foreign Relations – “There are strong arguments for greater US involvement in the Asia-Pacific region. With its large populations

...