Okinawa Trough

The existence of the Okinawa Trough complicates descriptive issues in the East China Sea.^[5] According to Professor Ji Guoxing of the Asia-Pacific Department at Shanghai Institute for International Studies,

• China's interpretation of the geography is that

  "...the Okinawa Trough proves that the continental shelves of China and Japan are not connected, that the Trough serves as the boundary between them, and that the Trough should not be ignored ...."^[5]

• Japan's interpretation of the geography is that

  "...the trough is just an incidental depression in a continuous continental margin between the two countries ... and that any legal effect of the trough should be ignored ...."^[5]

On August 15, 2013, China's mission did a presentation to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf^{[6][failed verification]} (CLCS) established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The presentation was on the proposal that demarcates the limits of the outer continental shelf beyond 200 nm in part of the East China Sea.^[7] China states that China's continental shelf in the East China Sea extends to China-Ryukyu Border Trough naturally, which has been over 200 nautical miles away from the mainland baseline of Chinese territorial waters. According to UNCLOS, any country claiming continental shelves beyond 200 nm shall provide relevant scientific evidence to CLCS. To collect solid data, China deployed 14 scientific survey ships, covering an area of 250,000 square kilometers.^{[8][9][failed verification]}

• Taylor, Brian. (1995). Backarc Basins: Tectonics and Magmatism. New York: Plenum Press. ISBN 9780306449376; OCLC 32464941
• Thakur, Naresh Kumar and Sanjeev Rajput. (2010). Exploration of Gas Hydrates: Geophysical Techniques. Berlin: Springer Verlag. ISBN 9783642142338 ISBN 3642142338; OCLC 646113755