None of these moves will have a lasting impact on regional tensions or, for that matter, the balance of power in Northeast Asia. But they nonetheless serve as reminders of the important role that memories of Japanese actions during World War II continue to play in East Asian politics. Chinese and South Korean grievances over their treatment at the hands of Imperial Japan are understandable. At the same time, the grievances often serve as political tools by which governments pursue contemporary interests, both domestic and international — even if those interests in truth have little to do with World War II.

On one level, the spike in tensions in the East China Sea reflects an attempt by claimant countries to offset growing political, social and economic instability at home. Each country in the region is preparing to enter a tense political period domestically. In November, China will undergo a once-in-a-decade political transition, even as it recoils from the destabilizing Bo Xilai scandal. In December, South Korea will hold its presidential election, in which political and economic relations with Japan are always a controversial issue. Likewise, the Taiwanese government is facing rising pressures, both internally and externally, to more carefully navigate relations with Beijing. Japan itself is steadily sinking into a politically uncertain period, with Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's resignation in the coming months all but guaranteed.  

At the same time, the periodic rise and fall in regional maritime tensions is not only about domestic political cycles. However superficial or passing in themselves, these tensions tap into deep-seated geopolitical dynamics. These dynamics, shaped in large part by the region's geography — by Japan's status as a resource-poor island nation, South Korea's as a peninsula and China's as a continental power — are embedded in the idea of East Asia as a maritime sphere, where countries must compete for access to and control over water rather than land. In recent years, as the prominence of the East and South China seas as key global transport corridors — as well as potential sites of underwater energy and mineral resources — has risen, the region's underlying geopolitical volatility has only increased. 

Each country has its own reasons for staking a claim in these waters. Both Taiwan and South Korea must guard against the very real threats posed by a more assertive China or a resurgent Japan. China must be able to guarantee that no power — including the United States and Japan — is capable of blockading it in the event of conflict, however unlikely in the near term. Japan, whose existence rests on secure sea lanes and access to the resources it does not possess at home, must likewise move to reaffirm and expand its own maritime boundaries against China and South Korea. These conflicts are as much rooted in geopolitics as they are in history. As the countries of the region try to adapt to a new environment in which the role of the United States is eclipsed by that of regional powers, the notion that their energy and security futures is at stake is both shared and inevitable.