Much Ado over Small Islands: The Sino-Japanese Confrontation over Senkaku/Diaoyu

Gavan McCormack closes this course reader with an article that highlights the geostrategic centrality of Okinawa by providing an overview of the currently raging dispute between China and Japan over overlapping claims to a peripheral set of uninhabited islands in “peripheral” Okinawa. The dispute has become so heated that it has generated fears that it could precipitate war between the two countries. As McCormack's insightful analysis makes clear, the issues involved grow out of the historical processes associated with the decline of the Ryukyu Kingdom and Okinawa's incorporation into the modern Japanese state. His discussion covers the actions of the national governments of Japan, China, Taiwan and the United States, and brings clarity to the dispute by detailing how differently the Senkaku issue is framed and conceived in the countries involved. It serves as an excellent illustration of how, thanks to its location, Okinawa's fate in the twenty-first century remains subject to the interplay of the larger powers active in the region, against which it remains relatively powerless.