ABSTRACT
The East China Sea is a marginal sea in the Western Pacific Ocean, west of the Kyushu and Ryukyu Islands of Japan, north of the South China Sea, east of the Asian continent, and south of the Yellow Sea. The East China Sea, beneath its seabed, is rich in crude oil and natural gas deposits. The Senkaku dispute has been on a roller coaster with ups and downs of the Sino-Japanese relations in the past. Among the uninhabited, geological formations of the island group are eight main islets, with the Diaoyu/Senkaku as the largest island. The BBC reported in February 2013 that the situation had become ''the most serious for Sino-Japanese relations in the post-war period in terms of the risk of military conflict.'' The second Sino-Japanese dispute is over their exclusive economic zones (EEZ) in the East China Sea. China's maritime economic interests as a net energy importer with increasing regional and global sea lines of communication (SLOCs).
