Abstract Marine sedimentary cores retrieved from the western Pacific provide important clues for deciphering how the East Asian Monsoon (EAM) system has evolved during the past 5 Ma. Here we briefly review some recent progress on the reconstructions of the EAM based on marine SST (sea surface temperature), SSS (sea surface salinity), and productivity records from the SCS (South China Sea) and ECS (East China Sea) and their implications for EAM evolution and variability on tectonic, orbital and millennial timescales. This review highlights the importance of high resolution sampling on giant marine cores (such as cores collected with the International Marine Past Global Change, IMAGES program) that provide opportunities for better defining the timing and amplitude of the EAM variability expressed in marine records. We also discuss possible future directions of EAM palaeoclimatic and palaeoceanographic studies that require development of multiple new marine EAM proxies and a comparison of the marine records with the stalagmite records on land.