Nine-dash line

The nine-dash line, also referred to as the eleven-dash line by Taiwan, is a set of line segments on various maps that accompany the claims of the People's Republic of China (PRC, "Mainland China") and the Republic of China (ROC, "Taiwan") in the South China Sea. The contested area includes the Paracel Islands, the Spratly Islands, the Pratas Island and the Vereker Banks, the Macclesfield Bank, and the Scarborough Shoal. Certain places have undergone land reclamation by the PRC, ROC, and Vietnam. The People's Daily of the PRC uses the term Duànxùxiàn (Tuan-hsü-hsien; 断续线) or Nánhǎi Duànxùxiàn (Nan-hai tuan-hsü-hsien; 南海断续线; lit. 'South Sea intermittent line'), while the ROC government uses the term Shíyīduàn xiàn (Shih-i-tuan hsien; 十一段線; lit. 'eleven-segment line'). A 1946 map showing a U-shaped eleven-dash line was first published by the Republic of China government on 1 December 1947. In 1952, Mao Zedong of the PRC decided to remove two of the dashes in the Gulf of Tonkin amid warming ties with North Vietnam. However, the ROC government still uses the eleven-dash line. In 2013, some were surprised by an additional dash to the east of Taiwan as part of a ten-dash line, but this had been shown in PRC maps since 1984. As of 2014, the PRC government had not clarified what it specifically claims within the line. In 2020, China clarified that it does not claim all the area within the nine-dash line as its internal waters or territorial sea. On 12 July 2016, an arbitral tribunal organized under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) rejected certain forms of Chinese claims within the nine-dash line. It did not rule on matters of territorial sovereignty. As of November 2023, 27 governments had called for the ruling to be respected. It was rejected...