Overview

• China’s Ministry of Natural Resources, through the China Institute for Marine Affairs, published a report asserting U.S. freedom of navigation operations lack a legal basis and distort UNCLOS while applying double standards.
• The assessment outlines 11 contested areas, including innocent passage of warships, transit passage, archipelagic sea lanes, the status of islands and straight baselines, military activities in exclusive economic zones, and air defense identification zones.
• The report characterizes U.S. practice as coercive and rooted in unilateral interpretations and self-created legal concepts such as “international waters” and a “high seas corridor.”
• China’s military said it expelled the U.S. destroyer USS Higgins near Huangyan Dao on August 13 for entering territorial waters without approval, highlighting recent on-the-water friction.
• The U.S. says its operations uphold navigation rights and the Defense Department’s FY2024 report lists China as the top focus of FON challenges, while a 2016 UNCLOS tribunal ruling rejected China’s nine-dash line claims that Beijing does not accept.