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Maritime Territorial and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Disputes Involving China
freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea and airspace, including for military ships and
aircraft, recognized under international law. Freedom of the seas is thus also essential to
ensure access in the event of a crisis. Conflicts and disasters can threaten U.S. interests
and those of our regional allies and partners. The Department of Defense is therefore
committed to ensuring free and open maritime access to protect the stable economic order
that has served all Asia-Pacific nations so well for so long, and to maintain the ability of
U.S. forces to respond as needed.10
Some observers are concerned that China's maritime territorial claims, particularly as shown in
China's so-called map of the nine-dash line (see "Map of Nine-Dash Line" below), appear to
challenge the principle that the world's seas are to be treated under international law as
international waters. If such a challenge were to gain acceptance in the SCS region, it would have
broad implications for the United States and other countries not only in the SCS, but around the
world, because international law is universal in application, and a challenge to a principle of
international law in one part of the world, if accepted, could serve as a precedent for challenging
it in other parts of the world. Overturning the principle of freedom of the seas, so that significant
portions of the seas could be appropriated as national territory, would overthrow hundreds of
years of international legal tradition relating to the legal status of the world's oceans and
significantly change the international legal regime governing sovereignty over the surface of the
world."
Some observers are concerned that if China's position on whether coastal states have a right
under international law to regulate the activities of foreign military forces in their EEZs (see
"Dispute Regarding China's Rights within Its EEZ") were to gain greater international acceptance
under international law, it could substantially affect U.S. naval operations not only in the SCS and
ECS, but around the world, which in turn could substantially affect the ability of the United States
to use its military forces to defend various U.S. interests overseas. Significant portions of the
world's oceans are claimable as EEZs, including high-priority U.S. Navy operating areas in the
Western Pacific, the Persian Gulf, and the Mediterranean Sea.12 The legal right of U.S. naval
forces to operate freely in EEZ waters-an application of the principle of freedom of the seas-is
important to their ability to perform many of their missions around the world, because many of
those missions are aimed at influencing events ashore, and having to conduct operations from
more than 200 miles offshore would reduce the inland reach and responsiveness of ship-based
10 Department of Defense, Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy, undated but released August 2015, pp. 1, 2.
" One observer states (quoting from his own address to Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs):
A very old debate has been renewed in recent years: is the sea a commons open to the free use of all
seafaring states, or is it territory subject to the sovereignty of coastal states? Is it to be freedom of the
seas, as Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius insisted? Or is it to be closed seas where strong coastal states make
the rules, as Grotius' English archnemesis John Selden proposed?
Customary and treaty law of the sea sides with Grotius, whereas China has in effect become a partisan
of Selden. Just as England claimed dominion over the approaches to the British Isles, China wants to
make the rules governing the China seas. Whose view prevails will determine not just who controls
waters, islands, and atolls, but also the nature of the system of maritime trade and commerce. What
happens in Asia could set a precedent that ripples out across the globe. The outcome of this debate is a
big deal.
(James R. Holmes, "Has China Awoken a Sleeping Giant in Japan?" The Diplomat, March 1, 2014. See
also Roncevert Ganan Almond, "Lords of Navigation: Grotius, Freitas, and the South China Sea," The
Diplomat, May 22, 2016.)
12 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) calculates that EEZs account for about 30.4% of the
world's oceans. (See the table called "Comparative Sizes of the Various Maritime Zones" at the end of "Maritime
Zones and Boundaries, accessed June 6, 2014, at http://www.gc.noaa.gov/gcil_maritime.html, which states that EEZs
account for 101.9 million square kilometers of the world's approximately 335.0 million square kilometers of oceans.)Congressional Research Service
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O'Rourke, Ronald. Maritime Territorial and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Disputes Involving China: Issues for Congress, report, August 17, 2017; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1020870/m1/10/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.