China and Japan have claimed sovereignty of tiny, inhabitant islands in the East China Sea for a long time. This paper attempts to analyze this territorial dispute from the conflict transformation perspective to seek a peaceful end. I believe that Nationalism plays a key role and interferes to resolve the dispute by international conflict resolution methods. To prove the influence of the nationalism on the dispute, I conducted a survey to measure individual’s nationalistic attributions and inquire attitudes toward the islands dispute of Chinese and Japanese. The survey result shows that a majority of the both Chinese and Japanese participants having a strong individual nationalistic attribution support their nation’s sovereignty over the islands. Moreover, a majority of the Chinese and Japanese having a weak individual nationalistic attribution do not support their nations’ sovereignty rather take different positions regarding to the islands dispute.

China and Japan have claimed sovereignty of tiny, inhabitant islands in the East China Sea for a long time. This paper attempts to analyze this territorial dispute from the conflict transformation perspective to seek a peaceful end. I believe that Nationalism plays a key role and interferes to resolve the dispute by international conflict resolution methods. To prove the influence of the nationalism on the dispute, I conducted a survey to measure individual’s nationalistic attributions and inquire attitudes toward the islands dispute of Chinese and Japanese. The survey result shows that a majority of the both Chinese and Japanese participants having a strong individual nationalistic attribution support their nation’s sovereignty over the islands. Moreover, a majority of the Chinese and Japanese having a weak individual nationalistic attribution do not support their nations’ sovereignty rather take different positions regarding to the islands dispute.

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