ABSTRACT
China was a key party to the nine-year UN negotiations leading to a comprehensive international convention on the Law of the Sea. In East Asia, Beijing assiduously pursued its claims to sovereignty over vast expanses of the East and South China seas. During the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea beginning in late 1973, the extended territorial waters issue quickly was subsumed under the question of exclusive economic zones. China's adoption of a more forward outlook on naval strategy in 1977-1978 had a marked effect upon the degree of control it thought coastal countries ought to exercise over foreign naval operations in economic zones. Chinese continental shelf, and are separated from Japanese territory by a deep oceanic trench. Chinese units seized one South Korean boat in May 1975, two in June 1976, and one each in May and June 1977. The chiefs of the armed forces' general staffs of France, Sweden, Belgium, and Portugal also made tours of Chinese naval installations.
