Maritime and territorial disputes between Japan and the PRC: the case study of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands under the Abe Doctrine

Details

Supervisors

Atanassova, Elena

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences politiques, orientation relations internationales, à finalité spécialisée: diplomatie et résolution des conflits

Abstract

Abstract: The identification in 1968 of significant stocks of fossil resources off the coasts of Japan and China has reignited the historical dispute over sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Located in a highly strategic area of the East China Sea, close to the deposits but also to security sea lanes, Japan is engaged with China in a dispute over this archipelago whose economic and military opportunities are of crucial importance to both players. Considered an essential component of the CCP's One China reunification policy on the one hand, and vital to the defence and preservation of Japan's regional order against Beijing's revisionist ambitions on the other, the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands encompass the most sensitive aspect of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations. The defensive neorealist analysis of the restructuring of Japanese foreign policy under the Abe administration in this research work allows us to assess the place occupied by the strategic issues of the Senkaku within the Abe Doctrine. The findings tend above all towards the observation that, while many consider and interpret Shinzo Abe's arrival in power as a rupture with Japan's pacific status, the Abe Doctrine is first and foremost part of a latent proactive dynamic of redefining Japan's role in its regional system initiated after the Cold War. Following a number of internal and external reforms, the Abe administration is working to strengthen its 'defensive defence' of the Senkaku Islands by bolstering Japan's military and state capabilities, deepening its alliance with the United States, diversifying its multilateral partnerships and bilaterally engaging Beijing to encourage the regime to align itself with the liberal international order promoted by Japan and the US. If the tensions surrounding the archipelago’s claim to legitimate sovereignty have run too deep over the course of time and seem now inevitably destined to persist, the Abe Doctrine has provided Japan with multi-purpose instruments in the state’s drive to actively balance China’s increasing expansionism in the East China Sea, and to further ensure the deterrence of its status quo nature.