NATIONALISM AND ISLANDS DISPUTE IN THE EAST CHINA SEA

• Main Author: Kurokawa, Makoto
• Other Authors: Vu, Tuong
• Language: en_US
• Published: University of Oregon 2018
• Subjects: China; East China Sea; International Conflict; islands dispute; Japan; Nationalism
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1794/23093

China and Japan have claimed sovereignty of tiny, inhabitant islands in the East China Sea for a long time. This paper attempts to analyze this territorial dispute from the conflict transformation perspective to seek a peaceful end. I believe that Nationalism plays a key role and interferes to resolve the dispute by international conflict resolution methods. To prove the influence of the nationalism on the dispute, I conducted a survey to measure individual’s nationalistic attributions and inquire attitudes toward the islands dispute of Chinese and Japanese. The survey result shows that a majority of the both Chinese and Japanese participants having a strong individual nationalistic attribution support their nation’s sovereignty over the islands. Moreover, a majority of the Chinese and Japanese having a weak individual nationalistic attribution do not support their nations’ sovereignty rather take different positions regarding to the islands dispute.