Japanese-Chinese Territorial Disputes in the East China Sea – Between Military Confrontation and Economic Cooperation.

This paper analyses the various legal, political, military and economic circumstances of the two territorial disputes in the ECS, and it evaluates the approaches by both sides to turn the ECS from a `sea of confrontation` to a `sea of peace and cooperation`. At long last Japan and China have agreed in principle to an economic interest-based approach and to jointly develop the hydrocarbon resources by setting aside the sovereignty and border delimitation issues. As part of this approach, Japan is offering China desperately-needed advanced technology for a more effective use of energy. However, this paper argues that China`s exploration efforts as close as 5 km from the Japan-proposed maritime border have created political and economic faits accomplis which are difficult to circumvent while the unequal distribution of the economic stakes (i.e. China`s advance in exploiting the hydrocarbons of the ECS) puts a greater onus on Japan to achieve a compromise. As a result, an overall better political climate which would also have to be more sustainable, is a necessary precondition to concluding an economic interest-based agreement, and so prevent an escalation of the territorial disputes.