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Drawing a Line in the Sky

12/3/2013

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Everybody relax: Joe Biden is on the case. The US Vice President is headed to Asia this week to try to diffuse mounting tensions over the Chinese government’s newly declared air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea. The area overlaps with the Japanese government’s ADIZ and covers a disputed chain of uninhabited islands known as Daioyu in China and Senkaku in Japan.

I certainly hope Biden’s trip is a success, because this would be a really stupid reason to start World War III. Not that I can think of a good one, but fighting over uninhabited islands? A conflict not about overlapping claims to sovereign airspace but about overlapping buffer zones outside sovereign airspace? Come on, people. Aren’t buffer zones supposed to, you know, provide a buffer to help avoid conflict? I’m no expert, but I think you’re doing it wrong.

Here, let me help: Those islands don’t belong to either of you. They’re uninhabited. If you’re not going to go live there or do anything with them, just leave them alone. You’ll be happier if you just forget about them, and those other guys will be happier, and we’ll just all be happier. This is the 21st century, for crying out loud. Make trade, not war.
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    Who Writes This

    Bradley Doucet is a Montreal writer and the English Editor of Le Québécois Libre.

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