The East China Sea maritime and territorial dispute: a stand-off that suits everybody?

Abstract

Over the past 20 years the East China Sea territorial and maritime dispute has become a key flashpoint in East Asia. Although the dispute has caused diplomatic and economic damage, its existence suits the key actors involved, thus reducing the incentive for resolution. The dispute undergirds the Chinese Communist Party's nationalist credentials and thus its legitimacy. The Abe Shinzō administration in Tokyo can use the dispute as an example of the “China Threat”, justifying the need for Japan to continue its “normalizing” path. Finally, although the USA portrays itself as a stabilizing force, extending the US–Japan Security Treaty to include the islands while seeking simultaneously to temper Japan's behaviour, the dispute also provides part of the rationale for the controversial US Marine bases in Okinawa and indeed for the US–Japan alliance itself. These gains make resolution unlikely, but do not preclude alternative conflict-management measures which could be proposed by third-party actors.