Territory and Conflict in the East China Sea

A panel discussion on the conflicts in the East China Sea, from China's new air traffic restrictions to the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute

ABOUT THE PANEL

In late November China announced new air traffic restrictions over the East China Sea. Most strikingly, China’s newly expanded “Air Defense Identification Zone,” or ADIZ, overlapped the hotly-disputed set of uninhabited islands known to the Chinese as the Diaoyu Islands and to Japan, which currently controls them, as the Senkaku Islands. China’s announcement also implicated South Korean and Taiwanese territorial claims and their own ADIZ’s. In response, the United States, which has a mutual defense treaty with Japan, deliberately flew two B-52 bombers through the new Chinese ADIZ. At the same time, however, the Obama Administration advised American commercial airlines to comply with China’s new rules.

Does China’s unilateral move portend escalating tensions in a region that contains multiple great powers and many unresolved conflicts? Will China and Japan’s long and sensitive relationship take a turn for the worse—perhaps fed by Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s recent visit to the controversial Yasakuni Shrine? Will the United States, which in 2010 announced a “pivot” to Asia, become entangled in new conflicts just as the American public has become more inward-looking? And will Korea, perennially squeezed between two Asian giants and with over 30,000 American troops on its soil, be forced to choose whether to confront China or acquiesce to its increasingly muscular foreign policy in the region?

Join us for a roundtable discussion of these and related issues with a range of experts from UCLA, UCSD, and LMU, led by moderator Mike Shuster, former roving foreign correspondent for NPR. 

ABOUT THE PANELISTS 

Dr. Tai Ming Cheung is Director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) located at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla. He also leads the institute's Study of Technology and Innovation (SITC) project. Dr. Cheung is also an associate professor in residence at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at UC San Diego, where he teaches courses on Asian security and Chinese security and technology. 

Dr. John Duncan is Professor of Pre-Modern Korean History and Director of the Center for Korean Studies at UCLA. His primary research interests are in the late Koryo and early Choson period. His first book, The Origins of the Choson Dynasty (University of Washington Press, 2000) examines the change of dynasties from Koryo to Choson.  He has also edited or co-edited a number of publications, including Rethinking Confucianism:  Past and Present in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, Reform and Modernization in the Taehan Empire and The Institutional Basis of Civil Governance in the Choson Dynasty. 

Dr. Gene Park is Assistant Professor at LMU and specializes in comparative politics, international relations, and political economy. He has written extensively on the politics of public finance in Japan including a book entitled Spending without Taxation: FILP and the Politics of Public Finance in Japan(Stanford University Press, 2011). Professor Park has been a Japan Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a Shorenstein Fellow at Stanford University’s Asia Pacific Research Center (APARC). He also spent two years as a visiting scholar at the Japanese Ministry of Finance’s Policy Research Institute.

Dr. Kal Raustiala is Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and Associate Vice Provost of the International Institute and International Studies. A professor at UCLA Law School, he holds a joint appointment with the UCLA International Institute, where he teaches in the Program on Global Studies. Professor Raustiala's research focuses on international law and politics and on intellectual property.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Mike Shuster is an award-winning former roving foreign correspondent for NPR News. Shuster covered issues of nuclear non-proliferation and weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and the Pacific Rim. He is also a UCLA Burkle Center Senior Fellow.

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