East Asia Forum Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific http://www.eastasiaforum.org China–Japan tensions over Senkaku purchase an orchestrated affair 17th September, 2012 Author: Linus Hagström, Swedish Institute of International Affairs Last week the Japanese government signed a contract to buy the Senkaku Islands [1] for 2.05 billion JPY (USD 26.2 million) from its private owners. Being disputed territory (the Chinese call them Diaoyu and the Taiwanese Tiaoyutai) it should come as no surprise that they get politicised from time to time, producing tensions in Sino–Japanese relations. Still, until 2010 both governments displayed an overarching interest in maintaining calm relations [2] , and leaders on both sides did their best to handle occasional flare-ups quietly. Tokyo for its part has maintained a strict policy of banning [3] anyone other than Japanese state officials from setting foot there. The sparring over the islands during the past summer shows the continuation of restraint on the part of both governments. Yet, Tokyo’s purchase of the islands may eventually alter this framework. Why did the change occur, and what will be its consequences? When a Chinese trawler collided [4] with two Japanese patrol ships in the direct vicinities of the disputed islands in early September 2010, most observers in Japan and around the world interpreted the ensuing interaction essentially as evidence of power shift [5] in the region. The large number of Chinese protests, their harsh wording and, in particular, the Chinese arrest [6] of four Japanese citizens in October 2010, and the discontinuation [7] of rare earths exports to Japan for two months, all suggested an increasingly ‘harsh [8] ’ and ‘aggressive [9] ’ China. Japanese authorities’ sudden release of the Chinese captain, after a 17-day arrest and detention was moreover interpreted as a ‘humiliating retreat [10] ’ and seen in the context of an page 1 / 5