Latest Breaking News
In reply to the discussion: China warns Taiwan independence 'means war' as US pledges support [View all]soryang
(3,299 posts)... are primarily about Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) not freedom of the sea. The US State Department and Navy style their mission as Freedom of Navigation (FON) but that is a mischaracterization of the issue. What China and the other states with claims in the region are fighting over are the exclusive rights to mining, drilling, and fishing rights in the competing Economic Exclusive Zones claimed by each state. This has virtually nothing to do with freedom of navigation. Any nation can navigate through an EEZ, the surface waters are freely navigable. What they can't do without agreements that say otherwise is fish, drill, or extract minerals.
Interestingly enough, the US does not accept Taiwans claim to an Exclusive Economic Zone based upon its claims to the Pratas Island atoll, nor does it accept its similarly based claim to an EEZ in the Spratley Islands based on its possession and control of Itu Abu (Taiping Island) because to do so is to implicitly raise the historical issue of Chinese sovereignty and exclusive economic claims in both island groups. PRC controls Woody island in the Paracel group of islands raising another similar claim to a 200nm EEZ surrounding that island.
Military agreements between the US and Japan implicitly repudiate the Chinese claim to the Daioyu Islands in the East China Sea. This is a Taiwan claim as well. That dispute is also about the surrounding EEZ rights.