This volume takes readers beneath the surface of the South China Sea by exploring critical but under-researched issues related to the maritime territorial disputes. It draws attention to the importance of private sector, civil society, and subnational actors’ roles in the disputes and sheds light on key policy issues that are addressed less often in the literature. By going beyond mainstream analyses focused solely on issues of traditional security, resource economics, and international law, it offers a fresh and engaging look at the South China Sea disputes. The book is divided into five parts – historical foundations, enterprises, localities, people, and policy – and its chapters investigate historiography in the region, the global defense industry’s role as beneficiary of the disputes, tourism as a territorial strategy, the roles of provinces and local governments, disaster management, confidence-building measures, environmental and science diplomacy, and other topics seldom discussed in other analyses of the South China Sea disputes. The book’s diverse content and fresh perspectives make it an essential read not only for policymakers and those in the international relations community but also for all others interested in gaining a more well-rounded understanding of the many issues at stake in the South China Sea maritime territorial disputes.

This edited volume rethinks the relationship between power and law in the age of China’s rise by examining recent developments in the South China Sea (SCS). The contributors explore different interpretations of international law on the legal status of the contested islands and rocks and provide detailed analyses of the contested concepts and provisions, the 2016 ruling by the SCS arbitration tribunal, as well as the environmental, economic, and political impacts of the ruling. This book facilitates a more meaningful and productive dialogue over the intersection, interaction, and interdependence between power and law in the context of the SCS. Assessing the interactions between political, legal, and normative forces, it provides insights into the specific dynamics of the dispute and the shifting security landscape in the region, but also offers a basis for thinking more deeply about the broader rise of China. This book will appeal to both students and scholars of IR, International Law, and Asian Studies and those engaged in research on the SCS disputes, the rise of China, and with a theoretical interest in law and power in international affairs.

The impact of continuous coastal development, reclamation, destruction of corals, overfishing and increased maritime traffic places all of us on the front lines of preserving our oceans. Marine biologists, who share a common language that cuts across political, economic and social differences, recognize that the sea’s remarkable coral reefs, which provide food, jobs and protection against storms and floods, have suffered unprecedented rates of destruction in recent decades. Dispatches from the South China Sea’s blend of participatory research and field reportage paves the way for a transformation of policy and, provides a basis for the eventual resolution of some of today’s major maritime conflicts. From overfishing, illegal and unregulated fishing, coral reef destruction and reclamations, Dispatches from the South China Sea charts science-driven cooperation opportunities. James Borton purposefully and passionately argues that the South China Sea can become a body of water that unites, rather than divides.

This book critically challenges the usual territorial understanding of borders by examining the often messy internal, transborder, ambiguous, and in-between spaces that co-exist with traditional borders. By considering those less visible aspects of borders, the book develops an inclusive understanding of how contemporary borders are structured and how they influence human identity, mobility, and belonging. The introduction and conclusion provide theoretical and contextual framing, while chapters explore topics of global labor and refugees, unrecognized states, ethnic networks, cyberspace, transboundary resource conflicts, and indigenous and religious spaces that rarely register on conventional maps or commonplace understandings of territory. In the end, the volume demonstrates that, despite being "invisible" on most maps, these borders have a very real, material, and tangible presence and consequences for those people who live within, alongside, and across them.

In one of the only works drawing on interviews with both Uyghurs and Han in Xinjiang, China, and postcolonial perspectives on ethnicity, nation, and race, this book explores how forms of banal racism underpin ideas of self and other, assimilation and modernisation, in this restive region. Significant international attention has condemned the CCP’s use of forced internment in ‘re-education’ camps, as well as its campaign of cultural assimilation. In this wider context, this book focuses upon the ways in which ethnic difference is writ through the banalities of everyday life: who one trusts, what one eats, where one shops, even what time one’s clocks are set to (Xinjiang being perhaps one of the only places where different ethnic groups live by different time-zones). Alongside chapters focusing upon the coercive ‘re-education’ campaign, and the devastating Ürümchi Riots in 2009, this book also unpacks how discourses of Chinese nationalism romanticise empire and promote racialised ways of thinking about Chineseness, how cultural assimilation (‘Sinicisation’) is being justified through the rhetoric of ‘modernisation’, how Islamic sites and Uyghur culture are being secularised and commodified for tourist consumption. We also explore Uyghur and Han perspectives, including of each other, giving insight into the diversity of opinions within both groups. Based on many years of living and working in China, and fieldwork and interviews specifically in Xinjiang, this book will be valuable to a variety of readers interested in the region and Uyghur and Han identity, ethnic/national identities in contemporary China, and racisms in non-western contexts.

Tourism and Hospitality in Conf lict-Ridden Destinations provides insight into the various types of current and post-conf lict destinations worldwide and the steps that might be taken to transform them into future tourist destinations. Through both a conceptual and demonstrative approach, this book examines the steps destination management organizations as well as destination marketers need to take in order to improve their image in the eye of potential tourists. It also questions the extent to which tourism can alter the image of a destination and the possible destination marketing strategies that can be undertaken. Analysis of a wide selection of international case studies in countries ranging from Palestine to Myanmar to Northern Ireland provides a thorough and far-reaching academic study. Written by an international and multidisciplinary team of leading academics, this book will be of great interest to students, researchers and academics in the tourism as well as development studies disciplines.