Evolution And Evaluation: U.S. Policy Towards The Diaoyu Islands Issue In Recent 40 Years

Under the background of the Cold War, the United States and Japan signed a series of treaties setting the stage for the Diaoyu Islands Issue. In the end of 1960’ s, Nixon adjusted Containment strategy,the Diaoyu Islands is "returned" to Japan, directly contributed to Sino-Japanese territorial sovereignty issue. In the past forty years,the Diaoyu Islands Issue between China and Japan ups and downs. In recent years, especially since 2012, the dispute intensified,Sino-Japanese relations continued to decline. The U.S. factor has always played an important role in Sino-Japanese relations and the Diaoyu Islands issue. In the existing research which include domestic and foreign research, the study on the Diaoyu Islands Issue and the U.S. factor only in a small percentage of which is basically no monograph and lack of a more systematic and thorough research. The Diaoyu Islands Issue for different periods of U.S. government policy to sort out and almost no comparative study, we can say this is a blank. In this paper, I use literature analysis to research the Diaoyu Islands Issue of the U.S. policies in different periods and to find similarities and differences. Next, I analyze reasons of this Evolution and find some rules inside. It has important meaning to the future of the Diaoyu Islands Issue and the Sino-U.S.-Japan triangle relations.The research shows that the U.S. policy on the Diaoyu Islands Issue, during the Nixon administration to the Clinton, Bush and Obama administration, experienced process of evolution from "no intervention" to "careful intervention" to "actively intervention ". The U.S. policy toward China, Japan and triangle relationship affected the U.S. policy on the Diaoyu Islands Issue. Evolution of The U.S. policy on the Diaoyu Islands Issue has been always influenced by Changes in the pattern of East Asia region, and is a response to the rise of China’s on the regional level. Evolution of the U.S. policy on the Diaoyu Islands Issue is subordinate to U.S. policy in East Asia and subject to the U.S. global strategy.