The East China Sea is a semi-closed sea bordered by the Yellow Sea to the north, the South China Sea and Taiwan to the south, Japan’s Ryukyu and Kyushu islands to the east, and the Chinese mainland to the west. It has a total area of approximately 290,000 square miles, consisting of mostly shallow waters; three-fourths of the sea is less than 500 feet deep. In the Okinawa Trough, the depths exceed 6,500 feet.1
Along the southern edge of the East China Sea and northeast of Taiwan are the disputed Senkaku islands. Although barren, the islands are important for strategic and political reasons because sovereignty over land is the basis for claims to the surrounding sea and its resources under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. China, Taiwan, and Japan all claim sovereignty over the islands, which are under Japanese administration, preventing wide-scale exploration and development of oil and natural gas in the East China Sea.2
Approximately 35% of global petroleum and petroleum product shipments traveled through the East China Sea in 2023. Over 95% of those shipments were destined for the Asia Pacific region, and the top three destinations were China, South Korea, and Japan.3
In 2023, China was the top importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and oil in the world.4China was the world’s top energy producer and consumer in 2022. We expect China’s oil and natural gas consumption to continue growing through 2035.5
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