ABSTRACT
The chapter examines Taiwan’s sovereignty contests over the East China Sea in the aftermath of the electoral victory of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in January 2016. It argues that the DPP’s rejection of the ‘1992 consensus’ as the foundation of cross-Strait relations spelt the end not only of Taiwan’s collaboration with Beijing—implied or actual—in the East China Sea, but also of President Ma’s One China project more generally. Still, fearful of being branded unpatriotic, the DDP maintained the position that the Diaoyutais belong to Taiwan, even though it downplayed the sovereignty issue. The opposition KMT, for its part, forged an alliance with the Baodiao activists, Taiwan’s pro-unification groups and Taiwanese fishermen that took over the burden of claiming the Diaoyutais for all of China after May 2016, thereby sustaining the One China discourse. Having exploited fishing accidents near the Diaoyutais and Okinotori, this One China coalition successfully locked the DPP administration into the position of defending the ROC’s sovereignty in the East China Sea as a part of the cross-Taiwan Strait status quo, a position that complicated the DPP’s efforts to build a strategic partnership with the Abe administration.
