ABSTRACT
China's maritime territorial claims are sparking tension because they are also disputed by other claimants; Japan in the East China Sea and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei in the South China Sea. This chapter aims to identify the commonalities and distinguishing characteristics between the two disputes. It shows that while both disputes draw parallels in policies out of Beijing, there are certain differences as well, which also factor in how Beijing calibrates its policy approaches to these regions. The East China Sea dispute poses China against Japan in competing sovereignty claims over a set of islets known as the Diaoyus in Chinese and Senkakus in Japanese. This regional dispute also entails a maritime border claim over where China's and Japan's Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) extend to in the East China Sea; China draws it at the Okinawa trough just West of the Ryukyu island chain, while Japan draws it halfway between the Ryukyus and the Chinese mainland.
