ABSTRACT
It has been suggested that the cool-headed decision of China and Japan in the 1970s to shelve contentious issues — such as Japan's wartime record and the question of sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands — appears to have been overturned of late. There are other initiatives that have helped to dampen this dangerous, 'tit for tat' escalation. The ROC/Taiwan government, on its part, has proposed the East China Sea Peace Initiative which, while reiterating (but side-stepping) claims to sovereignty over the Diaoyutai/Senkakus, augurs towards 'shelving disputes, pursuing peace and reciprocity, and promoting joint exploration and development'. The sheer minor scale and size of small (and especially uninhabited) islands and archipelagos, and their often lack of exploitable, land-based natural resources, may create conditions conducive to playful experimentation between contending parties, leading to creative solutions, and which challenge conventional conceptualisations of sovereignty.
