Embodying the state differently in a Westphalian world: an ontological exit for the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute

The endurance of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute since the 1970s is indicative of the grip that the Westphalian narrative has on the political imagination of academics and practitioners alike. Both materialist and constructivist scholarship has so far struggled to explain the dispute given its limited strategic and unclear symbolic value. Yet recent work in ontological security studies (OSS) has pointed to the intrinsic connection between physical and ontological security, and highlighted how the Westphalian notion of sovereignty constructs territory as part of the state’s body, and therefore as part of its embodied self. While this explains why such tiny islets can become existentially important for states, it offers bleak prospects for solving sovereignty-related conflicts. It seems unlikely that the dispute can be mitigated within the confines of the Westphalian system. Yet the insight that the body is constructed and part of the ontological security-seeking self is still useful. Building on this insight, we draw on East Asian medicine (EAM) to propose an alternative way of constructing the body. EAM’s monist and relational cosmology helps to conceive a post-Westphalian social body shared by the claimants, making various proposed solutions ontologically possible.