Territorial dispute at home: strategic narratives contestation over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands nationalization policy in Japan

Abstract

Japan’s ‘nationalization’ of three islands of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in 2012 involves a Sino–Japanese territorial dispute as well as a strategic narrative contestation within Japan. This article argues that ‘strategic narrative’, a persuasive discursive tool, can exert power through three communicative processes (formation, projection, and reception) in the same way as Copenhagen School’s ‘securitization’ concept. Thus, the strategic narrative can be used to explain the mechanism of securitization. In the 2012 Diaoyu/Senkaku nationalization crisis, the then Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro formed and projected a ‘provocation narrative’ to securitize the territorial issue, and then Japanese Prime minister Noda Yoshihiko attempted to use a ‘peace and stabilization narrative’ to calm things down. After analyzing the narrative contestation processes between Ishihara and Noda, this article finds that it was Ishihara’s triumph on the battlefield of strategic narrative, despite the result of the ultimate success of Noda to ‘nationalize’ the disputed islands.