Disputed Islands Crisis in the East Asia and its Impact on Regional Stability

Subject Areas :

alireza koohkan ¹ (دانشگاه علامه طباطبایی)
akram mohammadinasab ² (دانشگاه علامه طباطبایی)

Received: 2015-09-13 Accepted : 2016-07-23 Published : 2016-07-01

Keywords: US, China, Japan, South Korea, Sankaku / Diaoyu islands, Takeshima / Dokdo islands,

Abstract :

Abstract  One of the controversial issues in territorial integrity of the countries is the territorial and border disputes. In South East Asia, most of the countries have differences of opinion over the possession of a set of islands located between their countries and China. These countries are South Korea and Japan. With the discovery of oil and gas in these disputed islands, the attempt to solve these problems has remained unresolved. Since countries like South Korea cannot confront with China, they have sought the support of the United States and this has resulted into the expansion of the latter's influence and arms race and instability in the region. With this background the question raised by the article is "What has been the impact of tension between Japan, China and South Korea over the disputed islands on stability of South East Asian region?" It seems that the tension in relations of these countries have led to increase of arms race, instability and the expansion of the influence of big powers like the United States in the region. The methodology used in the paper is historical and documentary and the analysis of the data is descriptive-analytical.