Under UNCLOS Article 38, the Strait of Hormuz is a “strait used for international navigation,” whereby the right of transit passage is immutable, even during conflict. The U.S. justification in Iran—targeting vessels in international waters that engage with a rogue state—erodes the concept of the high seas as a sanctuary for neutral commerce.
The fear is China can use the example of current U.S. action in the Gulf to argue that national security similarly supersedes UNCLOS in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, moving from gray zone harassment to a formal, legalized blockade of islands or shipping lanes it claims as territorial waters. “It would set a precedent for China to argue that the Taiwan Strait is not an international waterway,” Carlyle Thayer, emeritus professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy, tells TIME.
Since June 2022, China has moved toward such a stance, claiming the Taiwan Strait is in fact “internal waters, territorial sea, contiguous zone, and exclusive economic zone,” as Chen Binhua, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of China’s State Council, reaffirmed last year. “Both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese territory, and China enjoys sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait.”
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