Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2008. / Thesis Advisor(s): Olsen, Edward A. ; Miller, Alice L. "March 2008." Description based on title screen as viewed on May 15, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p.63-65). Also available in print.

The East China Sea (ECS) dispute between Japan, the People’s Republic of China, and the Republic of China began in the early 1970s and has continued to escalate. Although the Japanese government claims to handle conflicts in the disputed area as domestic matters, scholarship has focused on the dispute as an international relations or legal issue between states. This project explores the dispute as an issue in domestic Japanese politics by examining the narratives and power dynamics of the major political parties, nationalist and ultraconservative groups, and Okinawan activists vis-à-vis the national government and international actors.

The ascent of China to a global power status has created a new wave of theoretical discourse on what this means for the future of international relations. The general consensus on a unipolar order of international relations is slowly giving way to discourse. The time of polarity shift in the system is associated with a likely conflict between the descending hegemon and the ascending power (Snyder 2002; Mearsheimer 2010). This theoretical background suggest that in the future, we might witness a military conflict between the US and China. On the other side of the spectrum is a more optimistic view of China's rise, which emphasizes the role of economic interdependence and the extreme cost of any aggressive foreign policy that would escalate the conflict potential between China and the US (Ikenberry 2008; Kang 2007; Fravel 2010). This assumption of a future military conflict between the US and China is at the center of this research. In the following pages I will explore the idea of a military conflict between the US and China in an in-depth analysis of the most contested and conflict-prone issues between China and the US: the future of Taiwan and the Senkaku Island dispute.

China, Japan and South Korea are three big economies in Northeast Asia that are innegotiations for a trilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA). A concluded FTA among them willcreate world’s third largest regional market that consists of of 1.52 billion people and thataccounts for 20% of world’s GDP. However the economic cooperation between the threecountries has constantly been interrupted by political issues that root back in the history of thethree countries. In the history the three countries have developed enemy images of oneanother, which have restrained their interaction over the years and influenced their currentrelationship. This thesis uses the enmification theory to explain how these enemy images andenmity feelings have emerged in the history and what impacts they have on political issuesand the economic cooperation between the three. Examples on political issues that are broughtup in this thesis are the recent intensified territorial disputes over Diaoyu/Senkaku islands andDokdo/Takeshima islands.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 272-296).

Since the Open-Door Policy has been carried out in 1979, China has gained dramatic improvements in many fields, such as economies and military. At the same time, the considerable changes also bring China many crises from the complicated international envirorunent. This thesis will illustrate these questions through nationalism and realism theoretical framework by using case study with a qualitative approach as the method. With the Five Peaceful Principles of Co-existence based foreign policy, this thesis will experience "Century of Humiliation" of China again and redefine the rising power of China through a case study about Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute between China and Japan. Although it is a little hard to analyze this case under a complicated international environment, plenty of document information will support to get a result of how China's foreign policy and national security are interlinked? Finally, "national insecurities" and "humiliating history" are drawn as the key factors that affect China's foreign policy making, and the interconnections of China's peaceful diplomacy and national security. "National insecurities" and "humiliating history" drive China to make the foreign policy of peaceful development, otherwise, to ensure national security, China need to strengthen the comprehensive national power.

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This thesis examines the deep bilateral tensions surrounding the East China Sea (ECS) disagreements between Japan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the period from August 19th 2003 to June 18th 2008 from an actor-centred constructivist liberal viewpoint. The East China Sea disputes could be described as a conflicting difference of opinion over a) the demarcation of maritime territory and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) in which potentially significant energy deposits exist and b) the ownership of the strategically important and historically sensitive Pinnacle (Senkaku/Diaoyu) Islands. This research addresses the question of why, given the fact that China and Japan have a strong interest in co-operation and stable relations with each other, small incidents in the ECS blow up into larger problems, cause approaches to the East China Sea to wax and wane, and move the relationship in a direction that goes against preferred national objectives? In attempting to unravel this puzzle, this work argues that domestic politics and popular negative sentiment have been the major issues that have greatly amplified and politicised the ECS problems and have significantly affected positive progress in negotiations aimed at managing and stabilising these disputes. By examining these, the thesis addresses the question of why China and Japan have been so constrained in their attempts to find a workable bilateral agreement over disputed energy resources and demarcation in the East China Sea. It also indirectly deals with the question of why the conflicting legal complexities surrounding these disagreements contributed to both states so fervently maintaining and defending their claims.