My Take | Is China really a quarrelsome neighbour?
- In the global context of border disputes, China is not statistically worse than, say India or the US, only that it gets the most media attention
Context matters. In fact, it is crucial to a broad understanding of anything. But daily news just isn’t designed to provide much of it. The advent of endless 24/7 news services has made it disappear.
Without context and background knowledge, it’s easy to spin an agenda and cherry-pick facts. If you pick on country A and report on every possible wrongdoing, whether alleged or proven, but then only rarely report on the misdeeds of country B, the impression readers will get, without a broad understanding of the relevant contexts, is that A is bad and B is good. Realities, of course, tend to be much more complicated.
Just out of curiosity, I have started looking into global territorial – both land and maritime – disputes just to see if China is unusual in having a high number of them. You would assume that should be the case, given the constant reporting and criticism of the country’s alleged belligerence towards its neighbours, most notably its infamous claim of the nine-dash line in the South China Sea.
Where is China situated in the overall context of border disputes between nations around the world?
Of course, different researchers and publications, from different years, come up with different numbers. But since border disputes tend to last a while, the numbers shouldn’t vary greatly.