ABSTRACT
This chapter examines four territorial-geopolitical conflicts which have come to the fore in recent years, each involving small islands with few or no inhabitants and each involving a long historical dispute over sovereignty. They span the East China Sea, the East Sea/Japan Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the South China Sea. The San Francisco System not only shaped the post-war international order in the Asia-Pacific, but its influence extends into the new millennium. The end of the Asia-Pacific War, the dismantling of the Japanese empire and US occupation, far from bringing peace to the Asia-Pacific, gave way to what Wada Haruki calls the New Asian Wars. These included national independence, liberation and revolutionary wars, as well as protracted international and civil wars. Major participants included China, Korea (DPRK and ROK), Vietnam (DRV and RVN) as well as Indonesia and the Philippines, and of course the Soviet Union and the United States.
