Do countries fight over it or just governments? I strongly suspect that the vast majority of the populations couldn't care less
Barren islands that countries never stop fighting over
41–50 of 59 posts
Re: Barren islands that countries never stop fighting over
#42This sort of situation has led to the exact opposite - territory which both two countries claim doesn't belong to them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil This is because both Sudan and Egypt claim a slightly nicer parcel of land by the coast, and presumably taking Bir Tawil results in ceding the claim on the other part. It all came about due to slight ambiguities chopping up the old British Empire colonies in…
Re: Barren islands that countries never stop fighting over
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
It gets lost in all the propaganda (designed to get the citizens behind a complex geopolitical effort) - Dokdo is mostly about fishing and other resource rights. The island itself is worthless, but the 200 nautical miles around it aren't. Here in the U.S. I've even seen local Korean owned businesses with posters up in the window "Dokdo is Korean territory!" and other such slogans. It may seem absolutely insignificant…
You would think South Korea has bigger issues to deal with, what with North Korea to the north and China to the west. I think South Korea focuses so much on the Liancourt rocks precisely because there is zero risk of an actual confrontation with Japan. It has become a safe way of conspicuous national posturing.
To the average South Korean, North Korea is surprisingly a non-issue. Most people just don't all that fired up over it and view the efforts around it (mandatory military conscription, etc.) as a huge inconvenience and not much else.
China is mostly seen as a source of cheap stuff and transient air pollution (even when the pollution is clearly caused by domestic activities). When China comes up elsewhere its for reasons of economic competition or having to do with those weird ethnic Koreans that live along the border between China and North Korea.
What South Korea has as its most pressing problems are mostly economic, stagnant wage growth in an advanced economy, pending shrinking population, very limited agriculturally suitable land, an export dependent economy with economically depressed customers and so on. A few years ago the price of cabbage shot up a few hundred percent and almost caused riots. [1] Feeding the population cheap stuff is a national political priority.
You are right though, that the rocks are politically convenient to saber rattle over without having to worry about Japan too much (who does have bigger valueless rocks to fight over with China -- who is solving their problems my simply manufacturing new islands where they want them).
1 - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/world/asia/15kimchi.html
Re: Barren islands that countries never stop fighting over
#44Better they expend their border-dispute resources over these barren islands than the inhabited ones.
In a way, isn't that just it? They're still 'fighting' over them because they're actually not that important? If they were important, the fight would be over much more quickly.
These fights give politicians something to do and more importantly, get people to rally around a nationalistic cause. We have always been at war with Europa.
Re: Barren islands that countries never stop fighting over
#45A fun example of an island which is not disputed: Märket is a small uninhabited island located between Sweden and Finland. It's divided between the countries and Finland even built a lighthouse on the wrong side of the border! Another example i the island Kataja, which didn't even exist when the border between Sweden and Finland was drawn, but now sits on the border. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A4rket https://…
Märket’s amazing: rather than Sweden demolishing or trying to take control of the lighthouse they both agreed to redraw the border in a somewhat symmetrical way to retain the same amount of territory.
Re: Barren islands that countries never stop fighting over
#46Ha, well played BBC! You mean the state broadcaster for the UK managed to avoid mentioning the Falklands in an article about disputed barren islands. I'm truly shocked!
Falklands has 3000 or so people, a small town, lots of sheep and is not really disputed except when Argentina feels like distracting attention from whatever shitshow is going on at home. Even their historical claim is dubious as hell.
The importance of these islands is that it allows Britain to claim territorial access to Antarctica.
For them, it was never about the people.
Re: Barren islands that countries never stop fighting over
#47The reason most of these islands are of such importance is because territorial waters, customs zones, and exclusive economic zones are extended by any sovereign land permanently above water, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that binds almost all states. So these little islands determine which state is legally entitled to write legislation that determines taxation, shipping, airline rou…
Yes. If you read the article, these reasons were explicitly mentioned.
Re: Barren islands that countries never stop fighting over
#48Ha, well played BBC! You mean the state broadcaster for the UK managed to avoid mentioning the Falklands in an article about disputed barren islands. I'm truly shocked!
Falklands has 3000 or so people, a small town, lots of sheep and is not really disputed except when Argentina feels like distracting attention from whatever shitshow is going on at home. Even their historical claim is dubious as hell.
I was in the Falklands earlier this year, and the place acts more English than England. You'd have to deport everyone en masse to make it seem remotely Argentine.
That doesn't stop the Argentinians from packing their cities with monuments and street names dedicated to the Malvinas Argentinas, and the islands (along with the brie wedge of their Antarctica claim) appear on every national map, right down to the ones on keychain fobs for tourists. That's got to do something to their collective psyche, whether it's saber-rattling season or not.
Right now there's offshore oil exploration taking place in the Falklands - you could see tons of equipment near Stanley. If that comes back lucrative, I'd expect the dispute to heat up accordingly.
Re: Barren islands that countries never stop fighting over
#49The reason most of these islands are of such importance is because territorial waters, customs zones, and exclusive economic zones are extended by any sovereign land permanently above water, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that binds almost all states. So these little islands determine which state is legally entitled to write legislation that determines taxation, shipping, airline rou…
As far as taxation and shipping go, not really. The Law of the Sea grants the right of innocent passage to all ships, so a country can't tax or harass ships merely passing through its waters. This holds for territorial waters as well as the Exclusive Economic Zone.
There are a couple exceptions for things like drug smuggling and terrorists, and now there's some concern whether these rules (fairly vague on paper) will be exploited by some for extensive search & seizures.
I made a site explaining the South China Sea disputes in particular if anyone is interested. southchinasea.co
Re: Barren islands that countries never stop fighting over
#50Improved headline: "The barren islands that countries never start fighting over"