ABSTRACT
The chapter analyses China’s historical narratives regarding the sovereignty conflict in the East China Sea and compares them to the KMT’s corresponding narratives. It argues that the Ma administration’s sovereignty project of One China and the Diaoyu conflict provided the PRC authorities with an opportunity to reinforce their long-standing One China principle in the domestic and international arenas, as well as prompted it to develop a discourse on shared sovereignty over the disputed islands in the cross-Strait context. While doing so, the Chinese leadership deployed state (e.g., Foreign Ministry or the Taiwan Affairs Office) to non-state actors (e.g., academics, thinktanks and media), each addressing a specific audience, whether domestic, Taiwanese or international. It also carefully drew a distinction between the desirability of cross-Strait unity on the islands issue and Taipei’s right to engage in autonomous diplomatic strategies in the East China Sea, supporting the former and suppressing the latter.
