Abstract: The Southern East China Sea Shelf Basin is a Mesozoic-Cenozoic superimposed basin developed on the pre-Mesozoic basement at the junction of the Eurasian, Pacific and Indian plates. It has experienced the superimposed deformations of the Jilong, Yushan and Yandang movements and the tectonic evolution is obviously influenced by both the subduction of the Paleo-Pacific plate and the Thethys-Himalayas Tectonic Domain. Studies of Mesozoic igneous events, basin tectonic deformation, sedimentology and comparative study between land and sea have been carried out in this region. Results suggest that the Southern East China Sea Shelf Basin might be a passive continental margin basin facing the Paleo-Pacific in Early-Middle Triassic; a fore-arc basin along the active ocean margin while the Paleo-Pacific Plate intensely subducted under the East Asia continent in Late-Triassic and Jurassic; a strike-slip pull apart basin controlled by the offshore Fault in the Cretaceous and a backarc rift basin in Palaeocene-Eocene when volcanic arc migrated eastwards.