The Chinese call the East China Sea by the name of Tung-Hai.In the east, the East China Sea extends to the Nansei Islands of Japan, in the north, it stretches till the southernmost main island of the country of Japan-Kyushu. In the North-West, its coast is formed by the Quelpart Island of South Korea. China, from which it gets its name, lies to the west of this sea.The East China Sea forms the coastal zone of the mainland of East Asia and is semi-closed save for the Taiwan Strait which links it to the South China Sea. The Yangtze River and the Cheju Island separate this sea from the Yellow Sea. It is located on the offshores of the eastern coast of China. The East China Sea is an extension or arm of the largest ocean in the world, the Pacific Ocean. With an average depth of only 1,145 ft (350 m), the East China Sea is quite shallow. It comprises an area of 290,000 mi (750, 000 sq km). The deepest part, the Okinawa trough extends up to 8,911 ft (2,716 m) downwards. The sea has become the source of territorial dispute and conflicts for its resources as well as the islands on it. Consequently, the military of the countries on its coast gets a strategic advantage for their wars.If this article answered your questions on the East China Sea and you have an interest in other famous water bodies, you can check out facts on the Andaman Sea and the Archipelago Sea.Maritime And Sovereignty Disputes In The East China SeaThe South China Sea is typically the center of attention in Asian politics for the dispute over its waters among the Asian nations. However, the East China Sea will be able to give it a far tougher competition for, in this case, international parties are engaged in territorial conflict over the waters of the East China Sea.Foreign affairs experts have labeled it as a ‘flashpoint’. Why? Because the East China Sea causes tensions among states and contestations for power are pretty common. The East China Sea has become a stage for maritime disputes among the military of countries like Japan, China, and the two Koreas. China and Japan have been contesting with each other over the ownership of an archipelago in the East China Sea, known as the Diaoyu islands in Beijing, and Senkaku in Tokyo. Eight in number, the islands lie northwest of Taiwan.The strategic location of this cluster of Diaoyu islands makes it a lucrative energy reserve as well as a gateway to crucial waterways. Consequently, both countries have been using maneuver warfare increasingly with each passing day. There are no valid mechanisms like treaties that can reduce the impact of such military activities, and no mutual agreement between the two nations on a peaceful solution to the conflict.International law is likely to be invoked due to the alliances formed by the main involved parties. While Japan has entered a formal alliance with the United States, China has its own alliances with neighboring countries in Asia. If Japan-China open warfare occurs hereafter, the White House will have to get involved in the territorial disputes. This is to ensure that its navigational and aerial routes remain open and accessible, but also to back the allies. Furthermore, if water and aerial transports which adhere to international law are barred from traveling on these routes, even then the US will be bound to take action.However, one needs to distinguish between the maritime and the territorial dispute to understand the type of conflicts that govern the East Sea. When we speak of territorial disputes over any sea, be it the East China Sea or any other territorial sea of China, or Japan, we mean the conflict involves the territory that shares its coast with the sea.For maritime disputes, it means conflicts involving the overlapping jurisdictional zones where each country claims legal authority over a common maritime area, such as the waters, and the underlying oil reserves or natural gas fields. The United Nations has established a legal convention to amicably seek out solutions to such maritime conflicts. It is called the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Among the countries that have ratified this convention, the prominent ones are Japan, China, and South Korea. According to this convention, the nations will have total sovereign authority over the internal waters, especially historical bays. If the marine territory involves any ‘contiguous zones’, the involved parties under UNCLOS will have the right to set up their own legal regulations for monitoring the use of the resources. There will be a police zone that will supervise these activities as well as permit ‘innocent passage’ to foreign ships. On the other hand, the territorial waters will be subjected to ordinances. These will oversee contamination, transportation of contraband goods, taxes, customs, and immigration policies.There is also a provision for an ’exclusive economic zone’ which while giving the nation special rights over the resources found in the water column and ocean floor, such as natural gas reserve, gives other nations navigational privileges, overflight, and the provisions for constructing underwater submarine pipe ways.Despite such rigid juridical boundary formations, the charter has still not been able to resolve eight of the nine marine border disputes in the Northwestern region of Asia. The causes are mainly geographical. Since the territorial waters are partially or fully enclosed, the states which are situated on these seas often find their jurisdictional areas overlapping.Maritime boundaries can be usually demarcated by either the continental shelf or the median line. The demarcation by continental shelves has proven to be largely contentious. It is because the three main countries involved in the UNCLOS, China, South Korea, and Japan have disputed over the overlapping continental shelf. On the other hand, Japan prefers demarcating its maritime boundaries by median line, unlike China and South Korea. Hence, the contention is only growing with no foreseeable solution.Tensions In The East China SeaThe major question regarding the international affairs in this geopolitical region is whether China is responsible for escalating tensions with Japan in the East China Sea.As mentioned earlier, the Senkeku aka the Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea has been the ever-growing source of tension between Japan and China. Concerning this archipelago, they are engaged in a cold war of arms proliferation and augmentation of military forces. In fact, in June 2018, the two nations had to open up a hotline for the transmission of information about possible crises regarding overlapping interests. In 2017, the Japanese ministry announced that the number of intercepts made by the Japanese military jets in retaliation to the Chinese air scrambles had been reduced by 23%. However, the percentage has been rising since 2018.Gaining absolute sovereignty over the Western Pacific Rim is also another aim shared by Japan and China. China had been allegedly provoking Japan to relinquish control over the Diaoyu islands. In 2012, Japan overtook three of the Diaoyu islands by purchasing them from a private proprietor. Following the purchase, China responded by overtaking those islands for making the base for air defense augmentation. From then onwards, Tokyo has reported witnessing Chinese fishing boats, and Chinese vessels with arms patrolling around the islands. Japan’s coast guard has reported that they have seen Chinese ships intruding that zone for 64 days at a stretch, from April-June.Since the Japanese archipelago in East China and South China Seas has acted as an advantageous base for the United States to monitor the activities of the Soviet Union since World War II, they will not cede the invincible fortress of the island chain to China so easily. Beijing, on the other hand, understands that breaking this island chain will give it uncontrolled access to the Pacific region, which is why it has been building military bases in human-made islands.The East China Sea In AstronomyThe heavenly market Enclosure constellation in Chinese astrology contains the Left Wall asterism, of which the Eta Serpentis star stands for the East China Sea.An asterism is the Chinese astrological concept of dividing the sky into a group or pattern of stars, not clustered properly to form constellation shapes. Among these, the Heavenly Market Left Wall comprises the stars better known as Hercules, Serpens, and Ophiucus. Of these Serpens corresponds to the Tian Shi Zuo Yuan star, which is analogous to the East China Sea.Islands, Rocks, And ReefsThe chain of lands in the East China Sea has seen dispute over the territory since times immemorial. Conflicts have arisen over the continental shelf they provide, and the consequent exclusive economic zone.The main archipelagos in the East China Sea are the Matsu Islands, the Ryukyu Islands, the Senkaku Islands, the Zhoushan Archipelago, the Jeju Island, and the islets of Pengja, Mianhua, and Huaping. The northern part of the East China Sea also has some submerged reefs in the form of rocks. These are the Socotra Rock, the Hupijiao Rock, and the Yajiao Rock. Among these, the Socotra Rock also causes conflict between two nations- South Korea and China. The reason is that despite being rocks with only 12 NM (16.67 km) territory, this reef falls within the overlapping areas of the two nations. Hence, the nations have an unsolved quarrel about which exclusive economic zone the rock belongs to.Study And ExplorationThe East China Sea is a widely traversed marine route for its economic and navigational advantages. However, scholarly and oceanographic exploration of its territorial waters began only in the mid-1900s, starting with the earliest studies from China itself. Although not as high-yielding as the South China Sea, this water body has proven to be a vast repository of non-renewable resources like petroleum and oil.In 1983, China discovered the Pinghu oil and gas field in the East China Sea. The scenario changed in the 21st century when many global research projects on oceanography had been launched on the East China Sea. Two oil and gas pipelines were constructed, both jointly financed by China and Japan, which transport the resources to the Chinese mainland, in Shanghai and Ningbo terminal, both off the shore. Consequently, much new information about the geography of the sea has been discovered, especially the natural gas reserves, and the petroleum fields in the sea bed. These projects are funded primarily by China and Japan to meet their demands for non-renewable sources of energy. According to the estimation of the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), almost 200 million barrels of operations in this part of the oil can be extracted from the recognized sources in the sea. The unexplored areas of this territorial sea might contain quantities of oil equivalent to at least 70 and at most 160 billion barrels of oil.The Okinawa trough of the sea is the most productive area, for it comprises a number of oil and gas reserves which have been discovered in 1995 by some Chinese enterprises. The Shirabak zone is the largest reserve of gas in this area. Most of the oil and gas extraction ventures are sanctioned and funded by the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), the Shanghai government, and the Chinese petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec).When it comes to gas, the sea has approx 1 to 2 trillion cu ft of reserves. Among these, Tokyo controls 740 billion cu ft of gas reserves, while Beijing holds 155, 400 billion cu ft of gas.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for the East China Sea then why not take a look at Arabian Sea facts, or Alboran Sea facts?
The Chinese call the East China Sea by the name of Tung-Hai.
