The politics of borders: Who decides where countries end? | CNA Correspondent

[00:00:03][music] At the NATO summit in Turkey in July, US President Donald Trump revived one of his most controversial foreign policy ambitions, his Greenland Gambit.

[00:00:16]>> That should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark. And when they wouldn't go along with it and with all the money we spend to help them with Russia and we don't have to spend any money, we could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe.

[00:00:30]>> One comment about Greenland, yet it raises a much bigger question.

[00:00:36]Why do humans draw lines?

[00:00:40]Why do we decide where one country ends and another begins? And perhaps more importantly, who gets to draw the borders that define territory? Over the past few months, our correspondents and editors have looked at everything from South China Sea to Cyprus, Kinenrad to Canada, Gibralta to Greenland as they explored this topic of geography and geopolitics. I'm Genevie Vu and joining me now, senior editor Tani Ling in Singapore and correspondent Nick Harper in Washington DC. Nick, let's start with you. Alberta in Western Canada. You've spent days talking to people there and they are seriously debating about sovereignty and separation and at the same time Donald Trump was talking about the United States acquiring Greenland.

[00:01:26]One place thinking about leaving, one place potentially potentially being taken. What struck you most uh when you were in Alberta?

[00:01:35]>> Well, this is a hugely emotive topic, Genevieve. I mean, in terms of Alberta, it comes down to that old clash song.

[00:01:42]Should I stay or should I go? Because there are some people who want to go.

[00:01:45]There are some people who want to stay and remain as part of Canada. And really, it all comes down to feeling.

[00:01:51]This is a campaign with two sides campaigning to do two different things.

[00:01:56]And it has spawned death threats. It's spawned divisions. I spoke to families who are literally split down the middle.

[00:02:03]Uh with people on either side feeling completely different things. And we're also seeing campaigners getting hate mail, abuse online. It is a very very emotional topic and people they don't care about constitutional law. They don't care about the legal arguments that are going into the referendum that's going to take place in just a few months time. What they really care about is how they feel, how they see themselves, and how they see their identity. I met two people in particular who are campaigning in two different directions. Chris Scott, he's part of the separatist movement. He set up a movement called Let's Talk Alberta. And he has dedicated the last year to traveling all over the province of Alberta, which is huge, an absolutely vast province. Uh sometimes he jumps on Cessna airplanes, gets six-hour flights just so he can talk to a little community. I joined one little community. Uh there was a couple of dozen people in the room. On the other side of the aisle, a federalist who wants to remain as part of Canada. The former vice premier of Alberta, Thomas Lazic. He is driving thousands of miles.

[00:03:10]He's got himself an old bus. It's 30 years old. It's somehow kept together.

[00:03:14]He's driven, he reckoned, about 14,000 kilometers in the space of just a few months. And he also is speaking to people. And one lady I spoke to in her 80s, she said that she has been in Alberta her entire life, born and raised. But if Alberta breaks away, she says that she won't stay. She will leave because suddenly home for her won't feel like home anymore. So very emotive, very emotional indeed.

[00:03:38]>> Right. And that, you know, Nick, that brings me to, you know, somewhat of a sim similar moment from uh our senior correspondent Jack Bour, his reporting in in Greenland. Let's have a listen.

[00:03:51]>> You you cannot forget that there are actually peoples living in the Arctic.

[00:03:56]So, it's not just a pristine national park or polar bears running around everywhere. It's it's actually the home of of an indigenous population in close collaboration with with other indigenous population across the Arctic. Um, there's this sentiment that or another slogan saying nothing about us without us that you can't just have security [snorts] discussion about the North American Arctic or or or elsewhere without involving us. You know that that line, nothing about us without us. To me, that's like a universal sentiment, isn't it? It's it's about agency and who has it and who doesn't have it. Now, Nick, from your lens in Washington, DC as a correspondent, you watch these developments from Greenland to Alberta.

[00:04:41]You get a feeling that, you know, people were not talking about borders really, were they? But what were they talking about?

[00:04:47]>> They're not. I mean, they're talking about who gets to make the decisions that affect their lives. I mean, that is the case really in any country, but it's particularly pertinent for these two areas at the moment. For Alberta, they're about 3,000 km away from the federal government in Ottawa on the other side of Canada. And people in Alberta feel that they've been taken advantage of for many years. That that federal government in Ottawa has basically made bad decisions that have affected their lives and done things that they haven't been happy with. For Greenland, they've got a similar situation. It's the capital of Denmark, a different country, Copenhagen, that's making the decisions. And for both people in both areas, they really want to be making more decisions locally. For the people of Greenland, at least some of them, most of them, that idea of the US making decisions is completely unthinkable. Uh there is of course indigenous communities in both areas.

[00:05:40]They want much more autonomy to make their own decisions. They've been saying that for years and years and years. They want to control their destiny. But really that bottom line is people talking about that idea of home, that idea of decision-m taking place on a local level. They don't really care about sovereignty. They don't really care about borders. They just want the ability to control their lives more than they currently feel is taking place.

[00:06:04]>> Right. And and Leeling to you, you know, your challenge was different. Now this has been your baby for you know a good half year and you've had to commission stories to connect reports you know from Asia to Europe, Africa, North America.

[00:06:18]Now closer to home to South China Sea, the West Philippine Sea, the East Sea, three different names, but we're talking about exactly the same body of water, >> right? Okay. And then there was of course there's Thailand and Cambodia uh you know where two countries came to blows over a border where one historian says which was never clear to to begin with. No, how did we get here?

[00:06:44]>> How did we get here? Um Jen, we got here through history's very very long runway.

[00:06:50]Now we often think of borders as fixed, right? That they've always existed in the form we know today. uh separating what's mine from yours, as we talked about earlier this week uh separately, but they're actually a relatively modern concept. Uh a few hundred years ago, much of Asia wasn't divided by hard lines on a map. Uh kingdoms had fluid boundaries. Uh power was measured more by influence than by territory. And sometimes these fears of influence, they also overlap each other. Then came the colonial era and the rise of the modern uh nation state and borders were drawn with much much greater position and um newly independent countries inherited these borders but not always with the same understanding of where they should be or why they were drawn that way and that's why history still matters and forms such a huge part of this series.

[00:07:45]Um here's how that historian you talked about here's how he summed it up nicely.

[00:07:50]The problem is that the so what you call the clear border never exist. Modern boundary throughout Milan Southeast Asia is made up on checky grounds. It's uncertain.

[00:08:04]If they want to make it more natural make it this is the rightful nationally rightful uh uh uh territory of this and that country.

[00:08:18]There's no such a thing as natural. No.

[00:08:22]>> And Jen, you mentioned that body of water that China commonly calls the South China Sea. Uh the Philippines, it's increasingly referring to it as the West Philippine Sea. And then of course, uh in Vietnam, the East Sea, they are all the same body of water, just few just right. Um and it's a prime example of how, you know, it's the same territory, but viewed through different historical and political lenses. And it's the same with Thailand and Cambodia that you touched on as well. The latest clashes may feel new, but um the dispute is rooted in colonial era maps and competing interpretations of history.

[00:09:03]>> Yeah, absolutely. So history is is messy, you know, but every government seems absolutely convinced that history is on their side, isn't it? uh one political analyst uh also made this observation. Let's have a listen.

[00:09:18]>> There will be a difference between contemporary interpretations and sort of past claims. And with past claims and claims in general, there is often a tendency to cite the weight of history because that creates an impression of legitimacy of uh importance of continuity and consistency.

[00:09:38]>> Now what Prof Chong said, the word that jumped out at me was legitimacy. It's, you know, it made sense why history kept coming out, you know, throughout the history. How did you feel about that?

[00:09:51]This was was kind of the driving principle behind the series uh when Nick and I, we actually had a brainstorming session uh way back when when this was just a little budding idea in our heads.

[00:10:05]Um we wanted to show how subjective the idea of historical legitimacy really is.

[00:10:10]And the idea that if if you can root your claim in history, it gives it legitimacy. You hear that in all, you know, in almost all kinds of disputes.

[00:10:20]Um, China, for example, says Taiwan has been Chinese territory since ancient times. We see that in the Thai Cambodia border dispute. We see that over Kashmir. And across the across Asia, governments draw on history to reinforce present day uh political claims. It's not just Asia, it's around the world as well. And also, Jen, importantly, history also gives people a a story that they can relate to. It's much easier to rally public support around the idea that this has always belonged to our to us. This has always been ours than around legal arguments or centuries old treaties, right? The problem is that history has a very long memory. And one side might argue uh say you know our people were here first in the 16th century and that's why it's mine and then you might say so what we're the people who live here now and both are appealing to different versions of legitimacy. So who is right? Um that's rarely something history alone can settle if you think about it.

[00:11:25]Legitimacy isn't fixed or permanent. um it can be argued, contested and reinterpreted over time and that was really the point of the series and Nate do feel free to weigh in as well. I >> I mean I would say that brainstorming session now feels so many months ago near [laughter] the beginning of this year.

[00:11:45]>> Uh yeah, this idea has definitely been percolating in the background for many many months uh coming to fruition during that period. But yeah, I completely agree. I mean it's very very different history the way that it's interpreted by different people and they can interpret it in completely different ways. You you would imagine that history remains fixed that it's it's not something that you can argue about. There are facts and figures involved but somehow I mean not just with these countries we're talking about but really any country any political campaign there is always that idea of history being interpreted in different ways by different people just to suit their cause to suit their argument. I mean it is fascinating.

[00:12:24]>> I mean absolutely right. So you say like you know in history there are facts and there statistics but history rests on the time continuum doesn't it? So back to the point is how far do you want to go back? You want to go back to biblical times? Is that where you want to start?

[00:12:38]Is it where what God sanctioned this is your land? Uh where do we start? That's the point. So history doesn't just shape the argument. It shapes the map itself.

[00:12:47]Which brings me to one place that I couldn't stop thinking about and that's Keningrad. And you know um uh you know I've got no no shame here to say that I've not heard of Kilaning Grat until this series came about and you know I just chased this rabbit hole uh down and and you know for the view for the purpose of I suppose other ignoramis out there. [laughter] Kinden is a [snorts] piece of Russia that's stranded between Poland and Lithuania hundreds of kilometers from the rest of mainland Russia. Nobody is fighting over who owns it. yet everyone seems worried about it.

[00:13:24]Help me understand why.

[00:13:26]>> So, yes, Jen, this is one of my favorite examples and it was one of these territories we really wanted to include in the series. Um, Kenrad was of course once a German city of Kigburg, part of East Prussia and then after World War II, the Soviet Union annexed it, renamed it Kalinrad. Um but then again history took another turn in the early 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed and then Lithuania gained independence as and suddenly Kinenrad was no longer connected by land to the rest of Russia.

[00:14:00]So it's kind of been this outpost this exclave sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. And you said it's hundreds of kilometers away from mainland Russia.

[00:14:10]Technically, it's about 360 kilometers from mainland Russia. So, for us, Jen, that's as far as Singapore is to um Koala Lumpur. And for Nick, I think that's as far um as DC is from New York City, if I'm not wrong. Right.

[00:14:25]>> That's I mean, that's a long way.

[00:14:27]>> Yeah. Um it's it's not too long, but it's long and further and much further when you're split and separated and and then stranded by these other countries in between. Right. Now the interesting thing about Kinenrat 2 is that it's Poland its neighbors Poland and Lithuania are NATO members. So Kinenrat sits right on NATO's eastern flank and it is heavily militarized. It's home to Russia's uh Baltic Baltic fleet and advanced missile system systems. So nobody's really questioning who owns Kin Grat. That's correct. Jen, the concern is where it sits. It's a reminder that um decisions made at the end of World War II are still shaping Europe's security landscape today.

[00:15:13]>> Right. One thing I noticed, you know, whether it was Greenland, the South China Sea or, you know, or Alberta, almost nobody on the ground in in this in your stories talked about history first, right? They talked about jobs.

[00:15:27]They talk about, you know, their future, fishing, security, industries like oil.

[00:15:33]You know, were the politicians and the people actually having different conversations?

[00:15:38]>> I think they were. I mean, the idea of history is something that politicians love. They love to debate about it. They love to refer to it. I mean, it's just a huge thing. And for most people on the ground, they don't care about that big thing. They care about the small things.

[00:15:51]They care about what they can see around them, what they can feel, what they can touch, what they can hear, what they can smell. So Alberta, one of the big things at the moment is cost of living as it is in many places around the world. It's also about oil. It's a huge province.

[00:16:06]It's a big powerhouse really of Canada.

[00:16:09]It produces a a tremendous amount of oil. It's got one of the biggest oil reserves in the entire world. And the people of Alberta want more control of that. For people in Greenland, they're worried about tourism, uh, in security, Arctic security, investment in the country, and they're also worried about the US coming in and grabbing things like critical minerals or resources out of the country. So, yeah, the politicians are talking about those big things. people on the ground want to talk about the small things, but I I think one thing I noticed is the fact that politicians are trying to tap into those longer term historical fears and really try and argue that now is their time. It's time for change. But also something else, which is of course true.

[00:16:51]It's very easy to blame someone else who's in control. If you don't have control, what then happens if you suddenly get control? You're the decision maker. Are you going to be able to do things differently? I mean, that is not clear. And one statistic from Alberta is that if the province gains independence, it could lose about 44 billion US dollars every single year as a result of global businesses leaving the province because they're worried about people on the ground suddenly having control of their future.

[00:17:22]>> Were they having different conversations? Um, yes and no. I think um on the surface, yes, because politicians tend to talk about sovereignty, defense, uh national security because that that's their job to protect the state, but they're also elected to represent the people who live there. Um and for the people on the ground, these same issues are much more uh those issues that you mentioned are much more immediate, right? Like what Nick was talking about, I mean, they're asking, will I still be able to fish these waters? Will I have a job? Uh will my children be safe? Will we still have a say in our future? Um, so in a way they're speaking different languages, but they're really talking about the same thing. What is ours to defend and protect? And for governments, that might mean territory and sovereignty. Uh, for ordinary people, it often means livelihoods, identity, and and agency.

[00:18:17]As you as you've talked about as well, a lot of this is about agency. So, you know, one side is looking at the map, the other is looking at everyday life, but they're both deeply connected, and that's, you know, that's what this really is about, >> right? So, after making this series, as it draws to a close, your your your your baby is born now after [laughter] this, uh, which which one place, if you can, surprised you the most and why? Not not because of the politics, right? But because it, you know, changed how you thought about borders.

[00:18:53]>> Yeah. I think the thing about borders that we all know, you know, it very much defines who you are as a person. So if you're born in one country, are are you born in a rich country or a poor country? Are you born in a country that has civil war, disease, famine, those type of things? Is your passport that you take to the airport, is it viewed on the world stage as a powerful passport?

[00:19:12]Is that Singaporean or that US or that UK passport? Is it powerful?

[00:19:18]Which is all very uh you know academic in many ways. I think what surprised me is not those things. People don't care about those things. They care about belonging. And the thing that surprised me by visiting Alberta is you can speak to people who are literally just feet apart. They are in the same location, but they have very different senses of belonging. Some people feel they belong in this place. Some people don't really have a sense of belonging and they can feel entirely different about the same place. For Alberta, they can feel close to the federal government thousands of kilometers away or they can feel completely separated by it. And and I think people just care about how they feel in the place that they're in. But it it was just unbelievable how different those views were from the people who were in that exact same place. Um, for me, I think, you know, it's it's one place we haven't discussed so far. For me, it was Cyprus. Um, I knew very little about Cypress. I mean, I I went to college with somebody from Cypress and that was it. Um, on paper, it's just one island, but the interesting thing is in reality, it's almost like three different geographies layered one on top of the other. Right?

[00:20:36]You have the Republic of Cyprus in the south and then in the north you have the territory claimed by Turkish criates and backed by Turkey and then you have two British sovereign base areas that Britain has retained since Cyprus gain independence. So three parties here but also Cypress brings together three key themes in our series. Uh the first is history that we have spoken about extensively here. The island is still living within the with the legacy of the events of 1974 and you can literally see that history in the UN buffer zone that cuts through the island. Um a place where time literally has stood still. In the story that will Denlo um the correspondent who was deployed there to Cypress to cover this. We saw pictures of you know shops and places where people fled. some of the paperwork is still there flapping and it's where time it's where time has stood still. The second theme of course is geopolitics.

[00:21:40]Cypress sits at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East and the Eastern Medit Mediterranean and that helps explain why it remains um strategically important to all these regional players.

[00:21:53]And the third of course is this legacy of empire that we touched on the British basis are reminder that uh even after colonial rule ended um geography didn't simply reset right so really Cyprus is a story about layers of history strategy and and um politics that accumulated over time and I think this was an interesting for me because no other territory that we covered brought these layers together more vividly than Cyprus is.

[00:22:23]>> Wow. Okay. On that note, well, this is like, you know, around the world in 80 days, isn't it? [laughter] Cover the whole globe, isn't it? Uh, but less than 80 days, I think. Okay. Now, before I let both of you go, one one last thought, right? Um, you know how when we were all in kindergarten, not so long ago, right? When in kindergarten, some of the first lessons that we learned >> very long ago. [laughter] >> Very long ago, >> let let's let's just say not so long ago. Okay. Just just, you know, play along. Okay. So um one of the lessons we learned was you got to color inside the lines okay keep within the lines right but you know now after graduating from kindergarten the trouble is nobody can agree you know where those lines are what do you think >> I find it fascinating by that idea of not just coloring inside the lines but look what happens if the lines change that idea if suddenly you get a new country being created like South Sudan 15 years ago There was a brand new country suddenly created and all these maps all around the world are suddenly >> the Democratic Republic of Congo gets renamed suddenly all these maps they need to be thrown in the bin. You've got to redo them. It might happen here. Some of the countries we've just been talking about some of these areas we might see in our own lifetimes maps being redrawn because of decisions people make there on the ground. [snorts] >> Mhm. All right. Yeah, that was that was what struck me too. the shifting goalpost. I mean, not to draw on the FIFA on FIFA theme and all that, [laughter] but um yeah, the shifting goalpost. That that was what struck me, too.

[00:23:55]>> All right, Nick Leeling, thank you both for this uh journey of a discovery. Now, if this series taught us anything is that borders aren't just lines on a map.

[00:24:06]Maps can make the world look wonderfully tidy. straight lines, different colors, clearly defined countries. But the reality is far messier. Every border has a story. Some negotiated, some inherited, some fought over, many still unresolved. But behind every line is the same human search for security, identity, and belonging. And perhaps that's why humans keep drawing lines even when they know someone somewhere will eventually challenge them.

[00:24:42]Thanks for joining me on this episode of the CNA correspondent podcast is brought to you by Tiffany Ango Craig Dale Zman and me Genevie Wu. Bye for now.