The United States and China in Power Transition - Strategic Studies ...

(尖阁群岛) in Japanese in the disputed area of the two
nations’ overlapping ocean claims. It is very difficult,
if not impossible, to see the settlement of one without
the other.
China and Japan are maritime neighbors on the
two sides of the East China Sea, with China’s eastern
seaboard from Fujian Province to Shanghai on the
west and Japan’s Ryukyu island chain on the east.
The distance between the two sides is about 360 nm
at its widest stretch in the north and about 200 nm at
the narrowest points in the south. For centuries, there
was no maritime boundary between China and Japan.
However, with the birth of UNCLOS, the two nations,
which are parties to the treaty, found the need and requirement
to establish proper dividing lines in their
shared waters and the seabed underneath.
The UNCLOS offers two key provisions for the
redistribution of the world’s ocean commons. First,
it encourages ocean littoral nations to claim 200-nm
EEZs off their territorial waters. Second, it also allows
ocean littoral nations with naturally extended underwater
continental shelves to expand the jurisdiction
of their continental shelves to a maximum of 350 nm
from their seashores.
These “revolutionary” provisions, however, were
bound to create overlapping claims and bring neighboring
littoral nations to confront each other. During
the long and exhaustive negotiations for the Law of
the Sea, nations were divided on how to handle inevitable
conflicts resulting from overlapping claims.
Some advocated a one-fits-all “median line” to settle
overlapping claims. Others insisted on an “equitable
principle” for claimants to negotiate solutions to their
disputes. The two sides could not reach an agreement
at the conclusion of the UNCLOS in 1982. They
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