Confrontation and cooperation in the East China Sea : [electronic resource] Chinese perspectives / Oliver Bräuner, Joanne Chan and Fleur Huijskens

SIP1502

"February 2015"

Four policy briefs conclude a two-year project supported by the MacArthur Foundation that enabled SIPRI to host high-level maritime security dialogues in Stockholm with significant Chinese and Japanese participation. For this project, SIPRI also received support from the Japan Institute of International Affairs and China’s National Defence University. This Policy Brief analyses Chinese perspectives on the risk of both accidental and intentional incident and collision in the East China Sea and on potential crisis management mechanisms that might help to avoid escalation and build trust between the two sides. The authors argue that, despite the tensions in recent years, many Chinese analysts and officials are keenly aware of the potentially catastrophic consequences of such incidents and have proposed a number of concrete measures to enable a return to a more cooperative relationship between China and Japan.