Moore, Gregory J

Abstract
While China’s rising power is certainly an important variable in Sino-Japanese relations, it cannot explain either why the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute broke out anew in the fall of 2012 or why the Chinese response was so strong. China read Japan’s move to nationalize the islands as an in-your-face move designed to show disrespect for China and make Japan’s sovereignty over the islands a fait accompli. In this article I borrow from Robert Putnam’s notion of twolevel games to argue that there are two levels of face politics going on in this case: one between domestic actors in Japan and in China, the other between the two countries. A solution to the territorial dispute can only be found when both sides’ “face needs” are recognized and met at both levels of analysis.
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