ABSTRACT
The U-shaped line in the South China Sea, despite its existence on the official Chinese maps for more than six decades and never challenged until very recently, has drawn wide attention globally and become the hottest subject in the discussion of East Asian maritime disputes, particularly after the map showing the U-shaped line attached to China’s Notes verbale was submitted to the UN in May 2009. The legal implications of the U-shaped line were also touched upon by the South China Sea Arbitration, in which the arbitral tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC) for China to claim exclusive historic rights to resources within the U-shaped line. As a response, China issued the Statement on China’s Territorial Sovereignty and Maritime Rights and Interests in the South China Sea on 12 July 2016, which can be seen as the most recent clarification of China’s sovereignty and maritime rights within the U-shaped line. This chapter provides a whole picture with regard to the origin, evolution and most recent developments of China’s practice relating to the U-shaped line, reviews a wide range of interpretations of the legal implications of the line, and discusses the definite and potential rights of China within the line. It concludes that the legal implications of the U-shaped line should be interpreted in the context of the post-WWII reconstruction of international order and the rebuilding of maritime legal frameworks; and the validity of the U-shaped line has never been disrupted or terminated until very recently. China has not given up maritime claims based on the U-shaped line and recent practice has demonstrated that China has further consolidated the effectiveness of the line by carrying out massive land reclamations, intensified law enforcement patrols, and fishery conservation activities in the South China Sea within the line.
