Rocks to some, islands to others
Michael Richardson, Straits Times 6 Mar 09;
WHEN is a piece of land, surrounded by sea, not an island? The answer to the question is of critical importance to Japan, China, South Korea and South-east Asian countries that assert sovereign rights over oil, natural gas, mineral and fishery resources over huge areas of ocean extending from their 'islands'.
East Asia is home to some of the world's biggest island-nations, among them Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines. The island character of Indonesia and the Philippines is so pronounced that they have been recognised as archipelagic states under international law.
If China's claims to ownership of disputed islands and atolls in the South China Sea are acknowledged or enforced, it will become a continental country with extensive island territory stretching deep into the maritime heart of South-east Asia.
Both China and Vietnam protested last month after the Philippines passed legislation spelling out its claims to some of the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. China, Vietnam and Taiwan assert sovereignty over the whole of the Spratly chain, while the Philippines and Malaysia claim areas closest to their shores.
Across the region, governments are showing increasing concern over the status of outlying islands, many of them remote and uninhabited. Not only do they mark the outer edges of national territory, but they also form starting points for control of offshore resources. This underlies the longstanding dispute between China and Japan over the uninhabited Senkaku islands controlled by Japan in the East China Sea.
Tension over the islands flared again on the eve of a visit by Japan's Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone to Beijing last weekend, after Tokyo said the United States backed Japan's claim and would come to its assistance if the islands were invaded. Both China and Taiwan say the Senkaku islands are part of their territory. All three parties use the islands to assert rights to ocean and seabed resources out to 200 nautical miles - an area known as an Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ.
Japan has a similar dispute with Seoul over Dokdo, known to the Japanese as Takeshima, which is controlled by South Korea. Meanwhile, Indonesia is pressing ahead with development projects on 92 outlying islands, fearing that some of them are prone to foreign incursions.
Singapore, too, is asserting its island rights. Last July, it claimed an EEZ around Pedra Branca. This drew a protest from Malaysia.
The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) allows pieces of land at sea to be defined as islands on two conditions. First, if they are 'a naturally formed area of land...which is above water at high tide'. And second, if they are capable of sustaining human habitation or economic life.
Of all the Asian island claimants, Japan has been stretching these definitions furthest and hardest. It is doing so because under Unclos, only natural islands can generate an EEZ. Artificial islands, man-made installations or structures, although above water at high tide, cannot be treated as islands and have an EEZ.
Japan, which consists of over 6,800 islands, claims the world's fifth largest EEZ, totalling nearly 4.5 million sq km. But over half of this area comes from outlying islands that are either sparsely populated or uninhabited. Some of Japan's EEZ claims are disputed by China, South Korea, Russia and Taiwan.
Perhaps the most extreme case is Okinotorishima, a coral atoll at the southern-most tip of Japan. The EEZ surrounding Okinotorishima alone covers about 400,000 sq km. But only two small bits of the atoll remain above water at high tide and they have had to be protected with elaborate concrete embankments.
One is now a helicopter landing pad while the other is covered with a US$50 million (S$77 million) titanium net to shield it from debris thrown up by ocean waves in storms. Between them is an elevated platform to support buildings for accommodation and storage.
Japan is in the midst of grafting tens of thousands of fast-growing coral fragments onto the submerged sections of the reef to strengthen it and raise more areas above sea level. More than US$250 million is estimated to have been spent on the project to sustain Japan's EEZ claim.
China disputes the claim, arguing that Okinotorishima has only a couple of rocks above sea level and that they are not islands. Yet in the South China Sea, Beijing appears to take a different view by treating rocks as islands. Its statecraft dictates that rocks are rocks in some places, but islands in others.
The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
