Interesting article in this weeks Economist
The Chinese spokesman was responding to a report by Bloomberg, a news agency, that Chinese military officers, during meetings in recent months with American counterparts, have repeatedly asserted that there are no international waters there. It said this had caused concern among senior American officials.
At least in public, China’s argument does not appear to have changed. It does not explicitly say that all waters in the strait are its sovereign territory. The words “sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction” refer to the various types of control to which it claims a right in different parts of the strait, which varies in width from 70 to 220 nautical miles. China gives these areas the same names, and specifies their width, as other countries do under the un
Convention on the Law of the Sea, or unclos (which China has ratified and America has not). It counts the area between its “territorial baseline” and a parallel line 12 nautical miles seaward as sovereign territory (see map). It claims the next 12 nautical miles beyond that as a “contiguous zone” where it has broad law-enforcement rights. That zone, and a band of sea beyond that, form the country’s “exclusive economic zone”, or eez. If there were space (which there is not in the Taiwan Strait), this could stretch to 200 nautical miles from the baseline. Like most other countries, America treats eezs as the high seas, accepting only a few restrictions such as
on rights to fishing and the extraction of minerals. China has a more sweeping view of its rights. It objects to any intelligence-gathering or exercises by military vessels or aircraft in its eez. It also demands
that foreign military vessels passing through the first 12-nautical-mile band (exercising “innocent passage”, as unclos calls it) get permission first. America refuses to comply.
China’s public statements often use language that blurs the distinction between sovereign waters and the eez. That may be intentional. It would clearly like others to believe it can veto any military passage
through the strait.