Consider the Senkaku incident in 2010, when, after Japan arrested the crew of a Chinese trawler that had rammed a Japanese coast guard vessel, China escalated its economic reprisals. The result, as one Japanese analyst put it, was that “China scored an own goal,” immediately reversing what had been a favorable trend in bilateral relations under the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.
比方说2010年的尖阁事件，在日本逮捕了撞击海岸警卫队舰艇的中国船长之后，中国进一步升级了经济报复。结果正像一位日本分析人士所说的那样，“中国自摆乌龙”，即刻扭转了执政民主党温和的双边政策。总体而言，尽管中国耗资数十亿人民币提高其在亚洲的软实力，但它在南海的所作所为却与自己试图传递的信息相冲突。