Abstract
The edited book is about the management of natural and environmental resources in cross-border or transboundary areas. The governance and management practices are always complex in such areas, the jurisdictions are usually under at least two or more sovereign nations or sub-national administrative units. The editor explores different cases of geographical, political, legal, socio-economic, and cultural issues, and offers his insights on managing natural and environmental resources efficiently and equitably in the cross-border areas. The book is divided into three major parts, Part I (Chapters 1 to 5) is the theory part, Part II (Chapters 6 to 8) is about the methods, and Part III (Chapters 9 to 11) deals with the cases of cross-border environmental management.
Chapters 1 and 2 are the concept chapters, which provide a very useful overview of the in-depth principles, ideologies and definitions of ‘border’, ‘functions of border’ and the most immediate ‘disputed areas’ of cross-border areas. Rongxing presents a theoretical case on the cross-border management learning from the ancient Chinese system illustrated under ‘Jing-tian zhi—A Shared Cultivation System’ from two thousand years ago from Mencius (ca. 300 BC) which is inspirational. As the ‘jing-tian zhi’ means the well-field system, it means each block of land was divided into nine square plots. The central plot was the public field and other eight households had to share their farming duties of that public field. This system implied that for the common shared land households shared their responsibility equally in top priority than their own private lands or plots in the block of their land (Figure 1). The Chinese have developed such solutions for solving ‘border’ land and areas issues for ages. However, most of the ‘territorial disputes’ nowadays have become more complicated to manage, because the political level and compositions are always not adjacent in the border areas in different spatial levels, such as districts, cities, states/provinces, regions and countries.
The Well-field System in Ancient China
In Chapter 2, Rongxing presents further literature review on international boundary studies for the last century from 1910s to 2000s. This covers history, evolution and changes in international boundary and cross-border areas studies during the World War I (WWI), World War II (WWII), post World War II periods (i.e., Cold War) until present. An obvious trend in this evolution can be seen; countries have expanded and fought for territorial advantages in the last century through WWI to the cold war period. However, countries nowadays are paying more attention to natural and environmental resources in cross-boundary areas, such as transnational water resources management including water resources extractions, pollution control, hydro-electrical power plant installation and flood management issues in the transboundary rivers (e.g., Mekong River). Hence, the definition of cross-border resources has clearly been defined as a natural resource (i.e., water), that is associated with two or more geographically adjacent management regimes and affected by multiple jurisdictions. The author further presents in detail key factors which are influencing cross-border resource management, such as physical (e.g., natural and environmental resources), political (e.g., different political systems—socialist market system vs. free-market system), economic (e.g., developed and developing countries—US-Mexican border) and cultural (e.g., ideological and religious matters—Jordon River between Israel and Jordan). In fact, these factors and influences are co-related in the cross-border resource management. These two introductory chapters by Rongxing are important for decision makers, scholars and planners to understand what the cross-boundary resource is and why the complexities have always existed to govern and manage these resources with neighbouring countries, provinces, cities and districts.
Rongxing further introduces and defines useful ideologies of cross-border regional science in Chapter 3; institutions for cross-border resource management in Chapter 4; and Chapter 5 demonstrated the most complex and concerned attribute—the cross-border resource management in disputed areas. These chapters provided possible solutions on managing cross-border resources, such as in Chapter 3, the optimization of natural and environmental resources in the cross-boundary area with the regional and environmental economics to see who are the winners and losers under scientific evaluations. Chapter 4 offers various principles on governance of cross-border resources, for example, joint management and co-management regimes showed different ways of management strategies of these natural resources, and the significance of establishing international and national legislation systems in relation to deliver a good governance in cross-border areas. More importantly, in Chapter 5, he describes and explains factors to enhance cross-border resource disputes, such as resource scarcity, location feature, international and domestic politics and cultural differences, and sometimes the dispute may involve more than one factor. An example is the dispute between China and Japan in the East China Sea. The dispute was created with the sovereignty of the sea territorial boundary after WWII, for example, the dispute on Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands (Kim, 2012). Today, the dispute between these two countries is getting more serious because of tensions shifting to the ongoing petroleum exploitation and fishery resources in the East China Sea (p. 176). Nobody wants war to resolve such issues and should avoid launching a war (Alexander, 2010). Rongxing suggests six levels of cross-border cooperation in pages 184–185 that may be theoretically useful in solving the cross-boundary conflicts (from 0–No co-operation; 1–Communication; 2–Consultation; 3–Collaboration; 4–Co-ordination; and 5–Full Co-operation).
Rongxing further offers some practical methods to resolve cross-border disputes and conflicts such as the territorial exchange scheme and fair division methods in Chapter 6; joint/co-operative development models in Chapter 7; and options for conflict management in Chapter 8. He connects well between the first part of the book (theory chapters) with providing many ideas and examples on the cross-border management practice which are coherently linked. For instance, in Chapter 5 he mentions factors that trigger disputes and conflicts like resource scarcity, and then he also provides answers and addresses some good options like the joint development model (e.g., the shared fishing area of China and Vietnam at the Tonkin Gulf) in Chapter 7; and international peace park (e.g., the management of Antarctica as a ‘continent of peace’) in Chapter 8 to facilitate cross-border co-operation on sustainably managing the natural resources. Inevitably, these chapters may help decision makers, politicians and planners to understand well these rationales and influences on cross-border disputes (Chapters 3–5) and some solutions through various global lessons, examples and models (Chapters 6–8) to avoid such disputes to happen or to spread further, and enhance the best cross-border management practice.
Across Asia, some cross-border disputes are ongoing and some remain unsolved. Rongxing demonstrates the case of dispute on petroleum exploitation in East China Sea in Chapter 9 and the Tuman River Delta development and environment in Chapter 11 to offer his in-depth insights on two complicated cross-border scenarios. Both cases involve multi-conflicts such as territorial and boundary, natural and environmental resources, and political histories and problems (i.e., WWII). In particular, Tuman River Delta case is very complex that comes across a variety of political systems between China (socialist market), Russia (transforming to free market) and North Korea (intact command system). Like the establishment of Greater Tumen Imitative (GTI) between China, North and South Korea, Mongolia and Russia, obviously is a strong signal for a better joint co-operation in the future, as both countries are bounded in the mutualistic relationship in economics and resources. For example, the development of the Far East Port at Vladivostok will largely benefit North East China, Mongolia and North Korea for exporting their products overseas. Russia also can gain advantage by building better transport systems (e.g., railways and highways) to connect with these countries and earn huge incomes from the port service. He has foreseen that economic development will be a vehicle of closer cross-border co-operation among these countries in NE Asia. However, the dispute between China and Japan are still in a deadlock on extraction of natural resources (i.e., petroleum and fisheries). Both countries should learn from the Tuman Delta case and try to find a common ground for building up the joint co-operation mechanism, which may possibly be the only way to create a win-win scenario for promoting development and stability in the East China Sea.
This latest edition from Rongxing is recommended, and will hopefully give inspiration to an emerging scholarship of cross-border resources management and planning across very complicated contexts. This book offered clear explanations on theories, sophisticated methodologies and addressing in-depth issues from case studies. Scholars, politicians and planners can gain inspiration from this text and achieve the best cross-border practice.