Why we have to be aware of uncertainty in Asia

This is an excerpt from an opinion piece first published by Fairfax Media on 19 June, 2017.

As part of the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s education programme, we’ve been trying to produce informative maps to help Kiwi school kids learn more about the countries of Asia. We’ve completed four of these so far.

You might think it would be a simple enough task. But in producing them, the team has been turning itself into knots over small dots and dashes that represent contested borders or islands. We had to abandon one map totally.

And there’s no simple answer — whether to include an island or not on an individual country’s map is bound to upset somebody or another. 

New Zealanders find it hard to get our heads around the political sensitivities of borders. Can you imagine New Zealand getting caught up in a dispute about the Chatham Islands or Auckland Island?

But the significance of dots and dashes on maps is very real in Asia. Earlier this month I attended the Shangri-La Dialogue, the major defence summit for the region. Our Minister of Defence Mark Mitchell was one of the speakers, as was Dr Ng Eng Hen, Singapore’s Minister of Defence and one of the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s Honorary Advisers.

Global threats and regional security: The rules-based regional order; and practical measures to avoid conflict at sea were among the issues discussed at the dialogue.  

Now, when I’m in Wellington, I understand conceptually that these topics are important. But they’re far more real when you spend even a few days in the region. You can read about these issues as much as you like — but you don’t feel them until you’re standing in a room with players from the countries involved. They are visceral. 

Read the full article on Stuff.co.nz.