East China Sea

The East China Sea is a marginal sea east of China. It is a part of the Pacific Ocean and covers an area of 1,249,000 km². In China, the sea is called the East Sea. In South Korea, the sea is sometimes called "South Sea", but this is more often used to denote only the area near South Korea's southern coast.

1 Geography
- 1.1 Rivers
- 1.2 Islands and reefs
2 EEZ disputes
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Geography

The East China Sea is bounded on the East by the Kyūshū and Ryukyu Islands, on the South by Taiwan, and on the West by mainland China. It is connected with the South China Sea by the Taiwan Strait and with the Sea of Japan by the Korea Strait; it opens in the North to the Yellow Sea.

Territories with borders on the sea (clockwise from north) include: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Mainland China.

[edit] Rivers

The Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) is the largest river flowing into the East China Sea.

[edit] Islands and reefs

Tong Island

There is a cluster of submerged reefs in the northern East China Sea. These include:

Socotra Rock, also called Suyan Rock or Ieodo, subject of an EEZ dispute between the People's Republic of China and South Korea.
Hupijiao Rock (虎皮礁)
Yajiao Rock (鸭礁)

[edit] EEZ disputes

There are disputes between the China, Japan, and South Korea over the extent of their respective exclusive economic zones.

The dispute between China and Japan concerns natural gas. The People's Republic of China (PRC) recently discovered that there exists an undersea natural gas field in the East China Sea, part of the field lies within the Chinese EEZ while the remaining lies on the disputed EEZ between Japan and the PRC.

Image:View of South China Sea.jpg

View of East China Sea from Yeliou, Taiwan

Under the United Nation's Law of the Sea, PRC claims the disputed ocean territory as its own Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) due to its being part of PRC's natural extension of its continental shelf, while Japan claims the disputed ocean territory as its own EEZ because it is within 200 nautical miles (370 km) from Japan's coast.

China has set up the Chunxiao gas field in its own EEZ (located 4 km inside the Chinese side of the EEZ boundary claimed by Japan) to tap up the natural gas. Japan also seeks a share in the natural gas resource because part of the field lies within the disputed EEZ.

The dispute between China and South Korea concerns Socotra Rock, a submerged reef on which South Korea has constructed a scientific research station. While neither country claims the rock as territory, China has objected to Korean activities there as a breach of its EEZ rights.