Is the clash over Senkaku/Diaoyu islands a sign of power shift between Japan and China?

What is it about?

Is there a "power shift" between China and Japan? Figures on economics and military size may suggest that China's power is rising at the expense of that of Japan. This perspective has become the main lens with which observers have interpreted the behaviors of Japan and China following the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands skirmish in 2010. However, this paper argues that adopting such perspective could lead to misleading conclusions, as evidences only offered weak support to the idea that Japan behaved like a declining power. Furthermore, the paper calls into question the dominant "power shift" narrative and, on the whole, the advances the practice of using narratives to understand data.

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Why is it important?

Narratives are powerful tools: not only do they offer us an explanation of the events unfolding before our eyes, but they also guide our actions. In East Asia, for example, when actors believe in the "power shift" narrative, they may be more inclined to resort to balancing behaviors toward China's rise. Already we can find this taking place in Japan, where the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands confrontation in 2010 has prompted politicians to call for a more robust Japanese security policy. This is why it's crucial to scrutinize the assumptions with which we approach "facts"; this article offers one such criticism.

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