Managing conflicting ‘Truth Claims’ – ambiguity in the diplomat's toolkit in East-Asian Island conflict

Abstract

The article is a study of managing interstate relations via ambiguity and secrecy. At the focal point of the article is the different constitutive logic of domestic politics and diplomacy in conceiving and managing social reality; with the former implying the notion of community and the latter separateness – the difference that allows for diplomatic conduct to rely on tacit agreements and ambiguity for managing contradictory ‘truth claims’, as China and Japan did in the case of the Ryukyu and later the Senkaku Islands. Such successful management is conditional on the parties' ability to control domestic narratives avoiding contradictions in their ‘truth claims’ becoming too blatant. Yet, modern technologies increasingly undermine states' capacities for this. The leaking on YouTube of the collision of a Chinese trawler with the ship of the Japanese Coast Guard in 2010 offers a perfect example. The incident aggravated the conflict and triggered intense debates on secrecy in Japan. The article concludes by arguing that once ambiguity and tacit agreements break down, leaders should turn to their public – recognize that noisy nationalist are frequently but a minority – and attempt to renegotiate ‘truth claims’ domestically to create the basis for a compromise.

Keywords:

• Diplomacy
• secrecy, ambiguity
• East-Asian Islands
• public opinion

Acknowledgements

There are numerous people to thank for their suggestions and encouragement in writing this article. I am especially grateful to Noé Cornago, Corneliu Bjola, Stuart Murray, Stefano Guzzini, Linus Hagström, Helene le Bail, Masashi Izumo, Masaaki Gabe, Shogo Suzuki, Eszter Timár and the two anonymous reviewers of the journal. Naturally, none of them should be held responsible for any defects in my article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. International politics involves two level games, where actors need to perform both in front of their international counterparts and a domestic audience striking bargains that are acceptable for both. Putnam's seminal work discusses this problem in detail (Putnam 1988).

2. The notion of sovereignty originated in Europe and its logic did not define relations in Asia, therefore clear boundaries did not exist in the Westphalian sense. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to argue that during the Tokugawa times, claims on one's central role were similarly incompatible as sovereignty claims on territory tend to be today. It is this incompatibility that calls for a diplomatic solution via ambiguity.

3. Debates over the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands raise a similar problem for Japan and South-Korea. The difficulty it raises is reflected by the comment by the president of South-Korea President Park Chung-Hee, when he said in 1965, before signing the Korea-Japan Basic Treaty: ‘…would like to bomb the islands out of existence to resolve the problem (Korea Times, The 2012)’.

Additional information

Funding

I am grateful to JSPS for their generous grant, which allowed me to start my research on the topic [KAKENHI grant number 23-01794].