The PRC''s coercive diplomacy: the dispute of Japan''s nationalization of the Diaoyutai Islands during 2012-2014

• Main Authors: Chung Chieh, 揭仲
• Other Authors: Cheng-Chuan Shih
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/31621740099724555639

博士 === 淡江大學 === 國際事務與戰略研究所博士班 === 103 === At the time when the Japanese government releases the possible “Nationalization of the Diaoyutai Islands” on 17 April, 2012, and expresses to “dispatch civil servants “on the Islands in order to realize the “de facto management”, to cope with this situation, the PRC government assumes that the Japanese government decides to break the bilateral consensus of “setting aside the disputes”, and is determined to enforce the “coercive diplomacy” on Japan. Owing to the US-Japan alliance, the opponents of the PRC’s “coercive diplomacy” not only includes Japan, but also the alliance itself. In order to put the “coercive diplomacy” into practice, the PRC government takes both the maritime law enforcement as well as the exercise of PLA military power, and combines the above mentioned measures with the non-military ones in giving pressure on Japan and the US, for achieving the below four objectives via diplomatic negotiations: 1. the request of non-dispatch of civil servants on Islands; 2. the request of Japan in admitting the fact that the sovereignty of the Diaoyutai Islands is in disputes; 3. the request of Japan in acknowledging tacitly the co-management of the seas peripheral to the Diaoyutai Islands; 4. the request of the US in persuasion of compromises from Japan. Amongst all, the PRC’s “normalization of patrols” in the peripheral maritime areas of the Diaoyutai Islands and even the patrols into the “territorial waters” of the Diaoyutai Islands, effectively challenge the Japan’s control over the Islands and creates the “new de facto” control favorable to the PRC. The PLA also exercises the carefully-designed military demonstration to show the PRC’s determination. In the meantime, the PRC has been keeping up the long-term and increasingly-escalated pressure on Japan and the US to support its diplomatic negotiations in parallel. The whole dispute has come to an end in November 2014 and the PRC successfully gained the direct fruitful results from the “coercive diplomacy”. Through the research on the PRC’s exercise of the “coercive diplomacy” in this case, it not only increases the understanding of the PRC’s “coercive diplomacy ”, but also it helps to study and judge the trends of its “coercive diplomacy” in the future. In a nutshell, the patterns of the PRC’s “coercive diplomacy” in this case is “to prevail against such overwhelming odds” and “to use one’s weak strength to win over the strong”, obviously different than other cases; hence, it also assists to broaden the theory of the “coercive diplomacy”.