Cartographic Aggression!

China's ten-dashed line map 2023.

Learned a new word today - cartographic aggression. In simple terms, it is the act of shoving a map in front of someone's face and expecting the someone to respect its boundaries. This is the age-old form of exerting geopolitical dominance, failing which the aggressor will have justification to attack and usurp the non-conformer.

Back at a time when the term Europeans and Flat-Earthers were interchangeable, early Portuguese voyagers managed to put their new discoveries on hand-drawn maps. These maps were State-guarded secrets. Everyone wanted to lay their hands on them to go another nautical mile. In 1538, Geradus Mercator, from a region around the Netherlands (a region known as low countries, which included Belgium and Luxembourg) with available information around him, put up the first world map. He mapped out Asia as separate from the Americas before the discovery of the Bering Straits.

The East India Company, after establishing their first post in Surat, the British representative presented an atlas to Emperor Jahangir. It was politely refused as the Moghul Empire was shown to be puny compared to the rest of the world. Whether it was intimidation or a gift is anyone's guess. 

As time passed, we have realised that a map is not merely a navigational tool. The British surveyors who went into the God-forsaken valleys of Afghanistan and the tundra lands of Siberia not to map the geographical terrain of the world for people to learn. They had geopolitics on their minds. Wanting to halt the Russian Empire's expansion and win in the Great Game of Imperialism, they were strategising their next military move.

Funny, Australia and Antarctica are seen here,

 even though they were discovered later.

(1606 and 1820 respectively) **

So, it is no surprise that China's 2023 Ten-Dash line map, in a single stroke, has stirred the emotions of many countries. In essence, it has staked claim over the whole of the South China Sea, usurping oil-rich islands belonging to Malaysia and Vietnam. On top of that, China had created artificial islands for military recognisance. It had successfully re-flared an old wound with Russia. By claiming a piece of 'island', Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, which almost brought to a nuclear showdown in 1969, China shows its fangs to its sometimes ally. A dash of line over Taiwan angered the Taiwanese, too. As far as China is concerned, Taiwan is part of China anyway. ASEAN has expressed its satisfaction. The Indian Government, as if its internal squabbles are not enough, is accused of quietly losing 2000 square km of its territory to China. The last time this thing happened, they went to war.

It is one thing to draw a map but another to recognise its borders. We all remember the aftermath of Sir Cyril Radcliffe's disastrous attempt at carving Pakistan out of India. The British can draw the Durand Line to demarcate Afghanistan from Pakistan, but that does not mean the Taliban nor the Pashtuns will respect it.

A map is a geopolitical statement attempting to exert power over an area. Now, the affected party must state their objection, negotiate, resolve or go to war for it.

** P.S. Of course, discovery is Europe’s POV. The Maoris, Polynesians and Australian aborigines knew they existed in Australia before Cook came and slaughtered them. The same applies to the penguins in the South Seas. Antarctica was their playground. I heard from the grapevine that Vikings 'discovered' Antarctica in their great travel in the 1500s.

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