The new statement puts all of these elements together, but its construction clearly separates the nine-dash line from the claim to ‘historic rights’ and other maritime rights claims. And another 2011 note to the UN specified that the Spratlys were entitled to an EEZ and continental shelf, but didn’t include the nine-dash-line map or ‘historic rights’. A diplomatic note to the UN in 2009 included the nine-dash-line map for the first time officially, but didn’t mention historic rights. The claim to ‘historic rights’, for example, is included in China’s 1998 EEZ and Continental Shelf law, but that document does not refer to the nine-dash line. None of the elements are new, but they have probably never appeared side-by-side in one document before (and certainly not with this level of authority). This was, as far as I know, the most comprehensive encapsulation of China’s claims ever made in an official document. It also disaggregated four elements of China’s rights and interests in the South China Sea: sovereignty over its claimed islands in the South China Sea territorial seas and contiguous zones based on those islands exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf rights derived from those islands and other historic rights.įinally, it reiterated China’s opposition to other countries’ occupation of some of the Spratlys, and voiced China’s commitment to freedom of navigation for international shipping. It restated China’s historical claim to territorial sovereignty and ‘relevant rights and interests’ over islands in the South China Sea, and reemphasised the government’s actions to uphold said sovereign rights and interests since 1949. The Chinese government’s statement contained five numbered points, each explaining a different aspect of China’s position. The implied claim to ‘historic rights’ across the nine-dash line area was also the subject of one of the arbitral tribunal’s major findings against China. But it has underpinned a great deal of the most worrying Chinese behaviour in the South China Sea, especially its program of patrols and coercive actions along the outer edge of the nine-dash line. Such an expansionist reading of the nine-dash line was never an official policy position. The authoritative statement of the Chinese government, released in direct response to the arbitration, strongly implied that China does not in fact claim historic rights over the whole area of the nine-dash line. Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacificīeneath its surface-level bluster, China’s authoritative response to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) arbitration this week contained welcome hints that Beijing may be subtly, and under cover of a strong stance on its South China Sea territorial sovereignty, bringing its South China Sea maritime rights claims into closer alignment with UNCLOS.
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