East Asian maritime disputes and South Korea’s middle power diplomacy

Abstract

East Asia’s maritime issues have evolved within a number of contexts, including international politics, economics, and law. Specifically, they form a multilayered structure of issues involving territorial sovereignty, resource development, delimitation of maritime boundaries, and protection of the environment. The danger of conflict escalation at sea has grown particularly large over the past couple of years, and there seems to be no end in sight to the tensions arising from maritime disputes in the region. A characteristic shared by recent maritime disputes in the region is that they have all occurred simultaneously, and behind this phenomenon is the shifting regional balance of power.