Outside-the-box thinking on diaoyoutai

Bob Choi

26 September 2012

As an alternative to a military showdown, many plausible solutions for the Diaoyoutai contention are being explored. These include:

- International legal arbitration on sovereignty

- Compromise between China and Japan towards co-ownership/co-management

While these are sensible, mainstream approaches, they are unlikely to succeed under the current political environment in both China and Japan.

What we need is outside-the-box thinking. The suggestion made by our Peter Wu (decimate the little island and wipe it off the map with a nuclear device) is an example of outside-the-box thinking, but it's a bit too radical. May I offer a few ideas that are more palatable and creative:

- Despite the recent economic success of China, a large number of Chinese are still looking to emigrate. All China needs to do is to declare Diaoyoutai a special administrative region and allow Chinese to relocate to the island. You can imagine what will happen then...

- One of China's special skills is in the production of near-perfect counterfeits. It should be easy for China to replicate a "Diaoyoutai" right next to the real Diaoyoutai. What the heck! We can replicate enough "Diaoyoutais" so China, Japan, Taiwan and even the Philippines can all have its own Diaoyoutai! If the US wants one, we can make one for her too!