Chinese Claims in the South China Sea: A Hundred-Year Struggle from Bird Poop (Guano) to Battlestations

Wednesday Feb. 7, 2:30pm Hybrid Lecture

Please join us in person or on Zoom for a conversation with Dr. Daria Ho of the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). Find Dr. Ho's faculty profile here to learn more about her work (link).

Join us on Zoom or In Person, CSUSB, SB-210 and https://csusb.zoom.us/j/388207496

This talk explores the rise of China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and how they emerged in episodes of perceived threats to Chinese sovereignty and nationalism.  It starts with the early 20th-century competition with Japan for islands of guano (birdshit), considers the problem of competitive maps, and proceeds to today's controversial Chinese construction of militarized artificial islands and airstrips, namely the Chinese "great wall of sand" in the South China Sea's reefs and atolls.

Find more information about the CSUSB Modern China Lecture Series here (link), and find recordings of some of the events here (link).