The Border Disputes That Could Tear Asia Apart

As the US makes a military and strategic “pivot to Asia,” it is entering a highly complex and fluid geopolitical environment.

China’s territorial disputes with its neighbors in the South China Sea have become a major point of contention in the region and maybe even a source of future violent conflict — and the rising superpower is far from the only country in the area with conflicts on its borders.

This map shows that the borders in Asia aren’t nearly as fixed as they might seem. China and India, the two most populous countries in the world, have a number of simmering boundary disputes. So do regional powers like Russia and Japan, along with more peripheral players in central Asia and the South China Sea.