Kazantsev Artem

The South China Sea and the East China Sea Issue from the Perspective of China’s Historical Policy towards Japan

ЮГО-ВОСТОЧНАЯ АЗИЯ: АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ РАЗВИТИЯ, 2023, №3(59), 212-223

 
Annotation: As China becomes one of the global economic and political leaders, it needs to increase its political influence in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. In this regard, China is trying to expand its sphere of influence in the disputed waters of the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Control over those maritime areas allows the PRC to monitor their sea lanes of communications and exploit their resources on favorable terms. At the same time, Japan’s interests are also connected with the South China Sea and the East China Sea, which exacerbates the Sino-Japanese contradictions. To achieve its goals, the PRC uses historical policy. The article analyzes the internal and external components of this policy. The historical arguments used by China and Japan in dispute-related controversies over those maritime areas are scrutinized. Arguably, the PRC’s key priority in the South China Sea and the East China Sea is the actual access to the territories rather than its legal foundations. From an internal perspective, the PRC’s historical narrative allows its leadership to outline a vector of development that is easy to understand and approve for the Chinese people. From an external perspective, Beijing uses its historical policy in order to exert pressure on its opponents, as well as to help to attract countries suffered from the Japanese aggression. It leaves wide room for the PRC’s discourse hegemony as a country that released Asia from the Japanese aggression. It is possible that China will subsequently declare other territories as indisputably Chinese and claim its rights to them.

Keywords: PRC’s policy of memory, historical policy, South China Sea, East China Sea, Diaoyudao Islands, Senkaku Islands, Japan