The Senkaku Islands are a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, administered by Japan. They are located northeast of Taiwan, east of China, west of Okinawa Island, and north of the southwestern end of the Ryukyu Islands. They are known in mainland China as the Diaoyu Islands or Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands, in Taiwan as the Diaoyutai Islands or Tiaoyutai Islands, and sometimes in the Western world by the historical name Pinnacle Islands. In Okinawan they are called ʔiyukubajima (魚蒲葵島). In the Yaeyama language, they are called iigunkubajima.
An exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind. It stretches from the outer limit of the territorial sea out to 200 nautical miles (nmi) from the coast of the state in question. It is also referred to as a maritime continental margin and, in colloquial usage, may include the continental shelf. The term does not include either the territorial sea or the continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile limit. The difference between the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone is that the first confers full sovereignty over the waters, whereas the second is merely a "sovereign right" which refers to the coastal state's rights below the surface of the sea. The surface waters, as can be seen in the map, are international waters.
The anti-Japanese demonstrations of 2005 were a series of demonstrations, some peaceful, some violent, which were held across most of East Asia in the spring of 2005. They were sparked off by a number of issues, including the approval of a Japanese history textbook and the proposal that Japan be granted a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
Okinotorishima, or Parece Vela, is a coral reef with two rocks enlarged with tetrapod-cement structures. It is administered by Japan with a total shoal area of 8,482 m2 and land area 9.44 m2 (101.6 sq ft). Its dry land area is mostly made up by three concrete encasings and there is a 100 by 50 m stilt platform in the lagoon housing a research station. There is a third completely artificial tetrapod-cement islet. It is located on the Palau–Kyushu Ridge in the Philippine Sea, 534 km (332 mi) southeast of Okidaitōjima and 567 km (352 mi) west-southwest of South Iwo Jima in the Bonin Islands or 1,740 km (1,080 mi) south of Tokyo, Japan. The atoll is the southernmost part of Japan and the only Japanese territory south of the Tropic of Cancer.
The Chunxiao gas field is a natural gas field below the East China Sea within the Chinese Exclusive Economic Zone, about 4 km to the west of the EEZ border claimed by Japan which is disputed by China. The Chunxiao gas field is the first of a group of four natural gas fields in the Xihu Trough being developed by China: the other ones are Tianwaitian, Duanqiao, and Canxue.
The Ryukyu Islands, also known as the Nansei Islands or the Ryukyu Arc, are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands, with Yonaguni the westernmost. The larger are mostly high islands and the smaller mostly coral. The largest is Okinawa Island.
China–Japan relations or Sino–Japanese relations are the bilateral relations between China and Japan. The countries are geographically separated by the East China Sea. Japan has been strongly influenced throughout its history by China, especially by the East and Southeast through the gradual process of Sinicization with its language, architecture, culture, cuisine, religion, philosophy, and law. When Japan was forced to open trade relations with the West after the Perry Expedition in the mid-19th century, Japan plunged itself through an active process of Westernization during the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and began viewing China under the Qing dynasty as an antiquated civilization unable to defend itself against foreign forces—in part due to the First and Second Opium Wars along with the Eight-Nation Alliance's involvement in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion. Japan eventually took advantage of such weaknesses by invading China, including the First Sino-Japanese War and the Second Sino-Japanese War.
The Okinawa Trough is a seabed feature of the East China Sea. It is an active, initial back-arc rifting basin which has formed behind the Ryukyu arc-trench system in the West Pacific. It developed where the Philippine Sea Plate is subducting under the Eurasia Plate.
The Spratly Islands dispute is an ongoing territorial dispute between China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Brunei, concerning "ownership" of the Spratly Islands, a group of islands and associated "maritime features" located in the South China Sea. The dispute is characterized by diplomatic stalemate and the employment of military pressure techniques in the advancement of national territorial claims. All except Brunei occupy some of the maritime features.
The Senkaku Islands dispute, or Diaoyu Islands dispute, is a territorial dispute over a group of uninhabited islands known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan, the Diaoyu Islands in the People's Republic of China (PRC), and Tiaoyutai Islands in the Republic of China. Aside from a 1945 to 1972 period of administration by the United States as part of the Ryukyu Islands, the archipelago has been controlled by Japan since 1895. According to Lee Seokwoo, the People's Republic of China (PRC) started taking up the question of sovereignty over the islands in the latter half of 1970 when evidence relating to the existence of oil reserves surfaced. Taiwan also claims the islands. The territory is close to key shipping lanes and rich fishing grounds, and there may be oil reserves in the area.
Territorial disputes in the South China Sea involve conflicting island and maritime claims in the region by several sovereign states, namely Brunei Darussalam, the People's Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam.
Shaw Han-yi is a Taiwanese academic and research fellow at the National Chengchi University.
Baodiao movement is a social movement originating among Republic of China students in the United States in the 1970s, and more recently expressed in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan that asserts Chinese sovereignty over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. The territorial right to the islands is disputed among the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, and Japan. Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands and China Federation for Defending the Diaoyu Islands are the main representative organizations in the movement.
There are disputes between China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea over the extent of their respective exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in the East China Sea.
Philippines v. China, also known as the South China Sea Arbitration, was an arbitration case brought by the Republic of the Philippines against the People's Republic of China (PRC) under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea concerning certain issues in the South China Sea, including the nine-dash line introduced by the Republic of China (Taiwan) since as early as 1947. A tribunal of arbitrators appointed the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) as the registry for the proceedings.
Japan is currently engaged in several territorial disputes with nearby countries, including Russia, South Korea, North Korea, the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China (Taiwan).
Vietnam claims an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 1,395,096 km2 (538,650 sq mi) with 200 nautical miles from its shores.
India has the 18th-largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) with a total size of 2,305,143 km2 (890,021 sq mi). It includes the Lakshadweep island group in the Laccadive Sea off the southwestern coast of India and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands at the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. India's EEZ is bordered to the west by Pakistan, to the south by the Maldives and Sri Lanka and to the east by Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Based on new scientific data, India has petitioned United Nations to extend its EEZ from 200 Nautical miles to 350 miles.
Chinese irredentism refers to irredentist claims to territories of the former Chinese Empire made by the Republic of China (ROC) and subsequently the People's Republic of China (PRC).
The Ryukyu Arc is an island arc which extends from the south of Kyushu along the Ryukyu Islands to the northeast of Taiwan, spanning about 1,200 kilometres (750 mi). It is located along a section of the convergent plate boundary where the Philippine Sea Plate is subducting northwestward beneath the Eurasian Plate along the Ryukyu Trench. The arc has an overall northeast to southwest trend and is located northwest of the Pacific Ocean and southeast of the East China Sea. It runs parallel to the Okinawa Trough, an active volcanic arc, and the Ryukyu Trench. The Ryukyu Arc, based on its geomorphology, can be segmented from north to south into Northern Ryukyu, Central Ryukyu, and Southern Ryukyu; the Tokara Strait separates Northern Ryukyu and Central Ryukyu at about 130˚E while the Kerama Gap separates Central Ryukyu and Southern Ryukyu at about 127 ˚E. The geological units of the arc include igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks, ranging from the Paleozoic to Cenozoic in age.
