Ever since Sanae Takaichi became Japanese prime minister last year, Japan has reinforced a Shinzo Abe era foreign policy aimed at strategically containing China. Against this backdrop, it has become increasingly assertive in the Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islets, even at the public opinion and policy levels.

In November, the National Museum of Territory and Sovereignty, under the Japanese Cabinet Secretariat's Office of Policy Planning and Coordination on Territory and Sovereignty, launched a special exhibition. On display were three documents from the late 19th century to the early post-war period, selling a narrative that "China had at one time regarded the Diaoyu Islands as Japanese territory". The idea was to bolster its claims with so-called "historical evidences".

Subsequently, on Feb 2, days ahead of elections to Japan's lower house, a Japanese author revised and republished his decade-old book on the islands. In it he criticized China's actions to safeguard sovereignty over the islands and stated that the Diaoyu Islands will become a "bridgehead" for the Chinese mainland to launch attacks on the Taiwan island and the United States' military bases. He thus advocated that Japan must "defend" the Diaoyu Islands at all costs.

These actions indicate that mobilizing public opinion and policy initiatives on the Diaoyu Islands have formed a mutually reinforcing mechanism in Japan. Moreover, Japan's actions concerning the Diaoyu Islands have transcended mere territorial sovereignty disputes.

Institutionalized steering of public opinion

In recent years, Japan has constructed a seemingly comprehensive but highly selective discursive framework surrounding the Diaoyu Islands. Its basic approach is not complex: first, select historical materials deemed favorable; second, assemble particular events and details; and finally, construct a
"logically coherent" narrative chain. After claiming the existence of "historical documents", "administrative acts" and "international treaties", they provide concrete and vivid accounts drawn from everyday life, such as references to Japanese "fishing activities" and so-called "development and utilization" on the Diaoyu Islands, as well as "maritime rescue operations" and "navigational safety measures" carried out in the waters around the Diaoyu Islands.

Through these narratives, the Diaoyu Islands are deliberately portrayed as "a space of long-term actual Japanese livelihood and management". In operational logic, this method bears close similarity to the deliberate cultivation of the so-called "emotional connection" toward Taiwan in Japan's discourse on the Taiwan question.

However, the objective is not to clarify historical disputes, but rather to transform the Diaoyu Islands into an instrument serving Japan's maritime strategy. Through carefully designed narrative amplification, the issue is being mobilized to gain domestic support for the Japanese government's policy toward China and to provide public backing for Japan's military and security deployments.

History of aggression 'disappears'

In its narratives concerning the Diaoyu Islands, Japan has gradually exhibited two distinct characteristics: a high degree of focus on everyday-life and the deliberate avoidance of historical timeline. Through the repeated presentations of "events that occurred", the Japanese government seeks to instill in the public the perception that the Diaoyu Islands are, for long, territory Japanese people relied on for their livelihood. Compared with abstract provisions of international law or historical records, specific stories about individuals, events, and scenes are easier to understand, and can even resonate with the audiences. By relentlessly repeating such narratives, Japan subtly equates its post-occupation "colonial activities" on the Diaoyu Islands with "legitimate sovereignty".

This approach is fundamentally historical revisionism. It is akin to someone seizing another's home: no amount of renovation or habitation can alter the fact that it remains another's property. Their lived experiences cannot legitimize such occupation. This logic itself represents a classic rhetorical tactic to rationalize illegal occupation and normalize the outcomes of aggression.

It must be made clear that Japan's so-called "use" and "management" of the Diaoyu Islands did not occur within a peaceful, lawful historical context. Japan secretly seized the Diaoyu Islands during its modern-era military invasion of China, which included the occupation of Taiwan Island and its affiliated islets. This act itself constituted aggression and plunder under wartime conditions, and its illegality was rectified after Japan's defeat and surrender. To detach activities carried out during the period of unlawful occupation from this historical premise is a distortion of history. This tactic of making the aggression "disappear" shifts public attention to "what happened later", gradually obscuring the fact that "it should never have happened".

More seriously, such narratives are easily accepted by the general public. In a country where historical education on wartime issues is severely lacking, concrete and vivid stories are far more compelling than abstract legal arguments. Even though erroneous claims regarding the Diaoyu Islands have been repeatedly refuted by scholars in China (The Diaoyu Islands: Facts and Legality by Liu Jiangyong) and even Japan (Origins of Japanese-Chinese Territorial Dispute by Tadayoshi Murata), the Japanese government and certain right-wing figures continue to present these claims, which eventually become accepted as so-called "common knowledge". However, all the activities carried out after Japan's unlawful occupation of the Diaoyu Islands — whether described as "production", "daily life", or "rescue" — cannot change the original illegal nature of that occupation.

Practical implications

The aforementioned narratives clearly serve present strategic objectives more than historical clarification. In Japan's revised National Security Strategy, the government explicitly states that in order to ensure the security of Japan's territory, including the areas surrounding the Diaoyu Islands, Japan's maritime law enforcement capabilities will be significantly reinforced, in conjunction with efforts to strengthen its organization. Against this backdrop, Japan's Fourth Basic Plan on Ocean Policy for the first time identifies Chinese actions as the primary "threat" to Japan's maritime security. The primary source of this so-called "threat" is the patrols Chinese coast guard vessels conducted in the waters around the Diaoyu Islands; Japan claims they constitute "intrusions into Japanese territorial waters".

First, Japan seeks to reshape the security landscape in the East China Sea and even the Taiwan Strait, which it thinks would provide it a "justification" for strengthening military capabilities, fulfilling its long-standing political aspiration of unshackling itself from its postwar pacifist stance necessitated by constitutional constraints.

Second, the Diaoyu Islands can be readily packaged as Japan's own "national territorial crisis". This transforms Japanese citizens' anxieties and patriotic sentiments into support for government policies. Third, within Japan's increasingly rightward shift, once the narrative surrounding the Diaoyu Islands develops path dependencies, they readily evolve into self-reinforcing mechanisms of confrontational thinking.

To summarize, the Diaoyu Islands topic is evolving into a critical instrument, orchestrated by the Japanese government, to serve its national-security strategy, shape domestic perceptions on China, and promote a longer-term ideological and public opinion contest. This manipulation reflects not merely Japan's contest over sovereignty and territory, but whether Japan confronts history and respects the basic principles of war and aggression. Any action that seeks to circumvent its act of aggression by building a narrative is undoubtedly an act of regression in history.

Finally, all of us — including the broader Japanese public — should understand that when a society becomes accustomed to substituting history with narratives, historical revisionism and erroneous perceptions will erode public rationality, pushing society onto a dangerous trajectory of cognitive distortion, radicalization and even misjudgment.

The author is a scholar with Beijing Foreign Studies University. The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

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