New imagined geographies into old geobodies: problems and prospects for China and Taiwan in the South China Sea

ABSTRACT

This article undertakes a two-part exploration of China’s and Taiwan’s attempts this century to re-imagine identity through the creation of new imagined geographies to fit longstanding geobodies. Building on work that examines the South China Sea territorial and maritime rights disputes, it first shows both the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) are using the South China Sea’s location in the geobody to develop new imagined geographies and transform their identities. Beijing seeks to develop a balanced continental–maritime imagined geography to better fit a geobody that includes vast tracts of maritime space, while Taipei is using the same body of water to turn away from the mainland and build a wholly maritime sense of self. The paper then argues that China’s and Taiwan’s new imagined geographies suffer from a unique combination of three characteristics that may undermine their political and rhetorical power. Their South China Sea claims are not based on a sacred homeland, a co-ethnic population or future settlement: taken together, these powerful factors’ absence may make it particularly difficult for the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) to convince their populations – and others – of their new identities.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• geobody
• imagined geography
• South China Sea
• Taiwan
• territoriality

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For comments on this article’s various permutations, the author thanks Bernard D. Cole, Zack Cooper, Avery Goldstein, Tyler Jost, Koong-lian Kao, Anne Norton, the journal’s editors and anonymous reviewers, and conference participants at Columbia University in the City of New York, the Council on Asian Affairs, the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies, and the University of Pennsylvania. For institutional support, the author thanks the University of Pennsylvania Center for the Study of Contemporary China.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.The views expressed are the author's and are not necessarily those of any institution with which he is affiliated.

Notes

1 To conform to common usage, this paper also refers to the PRC as ‘China’ and to the ROC as ‘Taiwan’, though it can be readily admitted that such conflation actually begs the question.

2 For example, in the 2010s alone, China added more artificial land to its Spratly Islands possessions than the five other claimants together had added to theirs in the previous 40 years combined (DoD, 2015, pp. 15–17).

3 For current scholarship that would most likely agree with Fairbank (1983), but still offer a more nuanced appreciation of the Chinese role in the maritime world, see (Wills, 2010; Zhang, 2012; Zhao, 2013). The author thanks an anonymous reviewer for highlighting these perspectives.

4 China is the world’s leading crude oil importer, and foreign sources account for nearly 80% of the country’s crude oil consumption (DoD, OSD, 2020, p. 133). The SCS is thought to hold varying amounts of assorted natural resources, increasing the importance of maritime claims (Daiss, 2016).

5 That Taiwanese fishermen have long plied SCS waters made an emphasis of Taiwan’s marine economy easy. The author thanks an anonymous reviewer for highlighting this point.

6 Beijing, in particular, relies heavily on historical evidence to assert its sovereignty (Malik, 2013). The Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in 2016 that the PRC’s history-based claims held no merit under international law (The Republic of the Philippines v. The People’s Republic of China, 2016).

7 Contiguity does not actually have any force under international law, but the point here is not about the law, but about emotion and perception.

8 For examples on land involving Qing China, see Perdue (2005).

9 Thitu, which the Philippines calls ‘Pag-asa’, is a 37-hectare island more than 500 km from the Philippines. Thitu hosts a military post, as well as approximately 100 civilians sent from Palawan (the closest province), whose government also provides the civilians with subsidies and logistical support (Reuters, 2019). The author thanks an anonymous reviewer for this information.

10 China and Taiwan may not be the first to claim uninhabited places, but ‘states tend to lay claim to (and try to defend their claims to) all territory extending to salient or defensible geographical features (like coastlines, rivers, or mountains)’ (Simmons, 2001, p. 303). In other words, claimed uninhabited places are usually proximate, if not contiguous; they rarely suffer from both the distance problem and the co-ethnic problem.

11 Though this does mean that the state is saved the trouble of making something extant legible (Scott, 1998). The state can start from scratch.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported financially by the University of Pennsylvania’s Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics, Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, and Graduate Student Government of the School of Arts and Sciences.