The East Sea covers approximately 3.5 million km2 in the Western Pacific Ocean. China’s U-shaped line starts in the Bac Bo Gulf, stretches along and about 50 to 100 km from Vietnam’s central coast southward to Malaysia’s James Shoal and Indonesia’s Natuna island, turns northward to circle the Philippine’s Palawan Island and cover sea areas where the Philippines claims sovereignty, and ends up at Luzong Strait between the Philippines and Taiwan. In the latest Chinese 10-dotted map published in June, the U-shaped line even covers India’s Arunachal Pradesh province. China’s U-shaped line is a political plot to claim all of the East Sea.

China has no legal grounds for its claim

China could not show any document to verify the specific positions of the dashes in the U-shaped line in its public note to the UN in May, 2009. China could not explain why the U-shaped line is dotted rather than solid. China considers the U-shaped line a boundary of its “historical status”, “historical waters”, or “sea boundary”. Many countries ask why China did not mention the “historical status” of the U-shaped line in its statement on September 4, 1958. Other Chinese legal documents, including the Ordinance on territorial and contiguous waters in 1992, the Declaration on China’s territorial waters baseline in 1996, and the Law on the Economic zone and Continental Shelf in 1998, fail to mention the “historical waters”.

Referring to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a fundamental document of maritime law signed by 161 UN members including China, it’s obvious that China’s U-shaped line is groundless in reality. The Convention has no “historical waters” concept.

Chinese scholars strongly denounce the U-shaped line

After the publication of the map showing a 10-dash line encircling most of the East Sea in June, 2014, China’s bbs.tianya.cn forum said the 9-dash line was rejected internationally, not to mention the 10-dash line.

Li Linh Hua, a former official of the China Oceanic Information Center, wrote on his blog about the 10-dash line. He said China has no evidence to verify the 9-dash line is its national boundary and called on China to respect the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Scholar Li Wa Dang wrote on his blog on April 30, 2013, that China’s 9-dash line encroaching on other countries’ economic zones of 200 nautical miles in the East Sea goes against the 1982 UNCLOS. Li said current East Sea disputes were triggered by the 9-dash line and the line is the foremost problem needing to be resolved to ensure peace in the East Sea. He said the Chinese government should remove the line to defuse the East Sea disputes.

China must withdraw its U-shape line claim

After the U-shape line was introduced in May 2009, Vietnam and the Philippines sent diplomatic notes of protest to the UN. In July, 2010, Indonesia sent a diplomatic note to the UN rejecting China’s claim. On July 23, 2010, in Hanoi, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized China’s claim in violation of the UNCLOS. China’s U-shaped line has faced strong rejection from Chinese scholars, foreign researchers, and the lawyers of directly involved countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines and countries with economic and navigational interests in the East Sea, such as the US, Japan, and India.

The East Sea is an intrinsic part of the development strategies of 9 countries. China’s claim, which has global impact, is strongly opposed by all the other countries.