The Nine-Dash Line

The “Nine-Dash Line” is a map boundary used by the People’s Republic of China to claim large portions of the South China Sea. It is not directly a sovereignty claim over Taiwan, but it is closely connected to the broader China–Taiwan issue because both the government in People’s Republic of China (Beijing/PRC) and the government in Taiwan (the Republic of China, or ROC) historically inherited versions of the same maritime claims from pre-1949 China. But they are not the only countries with claims in the South China Sea. Claimants include Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines.

The line originated with the Republic of China government in 1947 as an “Eleven-Dash Line.” After the Chinese Civil War, the communist government in Beijing adopted and modified it into the current Nine-Dash Line. Taiwan’s ROC government still officially maintains a similar claim, though Taipei today emphasizes stability and practical administration more than expansive maritime nationalism. It is interesting to note that Beijing sometimes argues that Taiwan’s continued adherence to similar maritime claims supports the idea that both sides belong to “one China.”

The Nine-Dash Line matters because the South China Sea contains major international shipping lanes, commercial fishing grounds, potential oil and gas reserves and militarily is a key strategic location. PRC/China has used the claim to justify building shoals into artificial islands, establishing military facilities there and on naturally existing islands, as well as conducting aggressive coast guard and naval patrols. Reports and videos of aggressive  maritime engagements routinely appear online, in the news, and in maritime industry journals.

The Nine-Dash Line, in a way, is tangential to the China-Taiwan dispute. The Nine-Dash Line is primarily a South China Sea territorial claim, not a direct claim about Taiwan itself. However, it is important as Taiwan controls Taiping Island (Itu Aba), the largest naturally occurring island in the Spratly chain – and some 1,000 miles south-southwest of Taiwan. This gives Taiwan a direct physical role in South China Sea disputes. Taiwan also sits near the northern gateway to the South China Sea from the East China Sea and along critical naval routes connecting the Pacific Ocean to Chinese coastal waters. 

But the nations most impacted by aggressive PRC maritime patrols and attempts at enforcement are the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia. The South China Sea is important to these nations for the same reasons it is economically important to China.

Claims and Assertions

The origin of the “Nine-Dash Line” is rooted in a mixture of historical memory, nationalism, geography, imperial legacy, and modern state-building. It was not created out of nowhere as a purely arbitrary assertion, but neither was it historically defined in the precise modern legal sense that China sometimes presents today.

Chinese dynastic records from the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing periods contain references to islands, shoals, navigation routes, and fishing grounds in what is now called the South China Sea. For centuries, Chinese fishermen, merchants, and sailors traveled through the South China Sea. Chinese fishermen from Hainan and Guangdong regularly traveled seasonally into the Paracel and Spratly regions. Chinese sources also describe maritime trade routes through the area. Imperial Chinese records, navigation charts, and local gazetteers mention these areas intermittently. China argues that these activities demonstrate discovery and naming of islands, longstanding fishing usage, patrols and survey expeditions, and administrative awareness of the region. There is also archaeological evidence of extensive Chinese commercial activity seen in shipwrecks, porcelain cargoes, copper coins, and evidence of the old Maritime Silk Road crossing the South China Sea.

But the South China Sea was never an exclusively Chinese maritime zone historically. Vietnamese, Malay, Filipino, and other Southeast Asian fishermen and traders also operated throughout the region for centuries and can make the same historical and archaeological claims. Even some Chinese legal scholars acknowledge the sea historically functioned as a shared maritime space used by many peoples.

What’s more, pre-modern Asian states generally did not define maritime sovereignty the way modern international law does. It was understood that “control” was fluid and shifting as seen in tribute systems, fishing access, trade routes, or occasional patrols rather than fixed maritime borders. So there was a historical Chinese presence and awareness in the region, but not continuous modern-style administrative control over the entire sea. The same can be said about several other nations.

This is important because under modern international law, merely having fishermen or traders present does not automatically create sovereignty over enormous maritime areas.

The Modern Era

The 1947 assertion by the Republic of China government under the Kuomintang (still before the takeover by the Communist Chinese) reflected several motivations. It was reclaiming territory after Japanese occupation, asserting China’s status as a restored great power, resisting perceived Western and Japanese encroachment, and strengthening national unity after decades of invasion and civil war. When the communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the government in Beijing took up the mantle of maritime claims.

For many Chinese people both in mainland China and Taiwan, the South China Sea claims became emotionally tied to the broader narrative of overcoming the “Century of Humiliation.” That narrative includes the Opium Wars, the Unequal Treaties that resulted from those wars, the resulting colonial concessions, the Japanese invasion, and the loss of sense from the foreign domination that was in place from the 19th to mid-20th centuries. In this mindset, recovering lost territories became symbolic of restoring national dignity and sovereignty. Many Chinese see the South China Sea claims not as expansionism, but as reversing historical injustice. But the counter-claimants in the region are not nations or peoples involved in any historical injustices against China.  The controversy is that historical usage, shifting periods of colonial dominance, and other factors are not automatically factors in modern legal sovereignty under international law. 

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in a case brought by the Philippines that China’s sweeping Nine-Dash Line claims had no legal basis under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Beijing rejected the ruling. Taiwan also rejected parts of the decision because it affected claims tied to Taiping Island.

South China Claims and Economic Zone Disputes

The relationship between mainland China and the island known today as Taiwan has evolved over many centuries and is shaped by migration, imperial rule, colonialism, civil war, competing national identities, and modern geopolitics. The history is complex because both the mainland government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the government of Taiwan, the Republic of China (ROC), developed different interpretations of sovereignty and legitimacy.

Early Taiwan Before Large-Scale Chinese Settlement. For thousands of years, Taiwan was inhabited by Austronesian Indigenous peoples, culturally and linguistically related to peoples in the Philippines and Pacific islands. Imperial Chinese dynasties knew of the island, but for much of history it remained outside direct Chinese administration. Beginning in the late Ming period (16th–17th centuries), increasing numbers of settlers from Fujian and Guangdong provinces migrated to Taiwan, especially fishermen and farmers.

European Colonial Presence (1600s). In the early 17th century, European powers entered Taiwan. The Netherlands established a colony in southern Taiwan in 1624. Then Spain briefly occupied northern Taiwan from 1626–1642. There is much that can be said about this period but there is perhaps one lasting effect: the Dutch encouraged Han Chinese immigration to develop agriculture and trade. The indigenous people identity was, for all practical purposes, at risk of being absorbed into a Chinese identity.

Taiwan apart from China. In the 17th century the Ming Dynasty of China fell to the Qing Dynasty. In 1662, a Ming loyalist on Taiwan, Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga), expelled the Dutch and established a regime on Taiwan. It was an outpost of the now fallen Ming Dynasty. Koxinga hoped Taiwan could serve as a base to retake mainland China from the Qing. Even from this early date there was a strong sense of “other” from the mainland Chinese. This and the following years are a fluid time in the history of China, Japan and Korea.

Qing Dynasty Comes to Taiwan. In 1683, the Qing conquered Taiwan and incorporated it into the empire. Initially the Qing treated Taiwan as a frontier territory and limited migration, but over time millions of Han Chinese settlers arrived. During this period indigenous peoples were gradually displaced from western plains into mountainous regions, ethnic tensions sometimes emerged between settlers from different regions of China, and Taiwan became increasingly linked economically and culturally with the mainland Fujian province. In 1885 Taiwan became a full province of the Qing Empire and firmly part of mainland China. The Chinese Qing government was China’s last imperial dynasty. 

But by this time the Qing Empire had fallen on hard times at the hands of the European colonial powers, especially Britain. The great lure of China had not only been for its exotic exports but the possibilities of exports to China with their population in the millions. In the mid-19th century Britain had a massive trade deficit with China, as they imported huge amounts of tea, silk, and porcelain but China wanted few British products in return. An import/product was needed that would balance the trade relationship. Unfortunately the British East India company began the importation of opium from India. It became the commodity that reversed the cash flow, paying for Chinese goods but causing widespread addiction in China.

Seeing the social and economic devastation, the Qings banned opium in 1839. They confiscated and destroyed over 20,000 chests of British opium in Guangzhou (Canton), the merchants demanded compensation, viewing it as an attack on property. Their demand was backed by the British government who further demanded “free trade” and an end to China’s restrictive Canton system which limited each foreign nation’s traders to one port and imposed strict rules for transactions. The conflict was fundamentally about sovereignty – China asserting its right to control its own internal affairs versus Britain’s assertion of international trade rights and extraterritoriality for its citizens. The First Opium War between Great Britain and China was fought from 1839 to 1842. The British crushed the Chinese and forced trade agreements that highly favored the British. Other colonial powers demanded equal benefits leading to what are called, “The Unequal Treaties.” A second Opium War was fought in 1857-1858.  

The once great China was now a devastated nation subjected to colonial demands.  Something that was not lost on Japan as it came out of its isolationist period and entered the Meiji Era of Japanese governance. You read about this movement within Japan that would ultimately greatly impact China.

Japanese Rule (1895–1945). The First Sino-Japanese War resulted from the collision of modern Japan’s strategy to be recognized as a great world power, China’s central government declining ability to extract tributes from regions and tribute countries, and increased instability in Korea as Japan and Russia strove to exert influence over this traditional Chinese tribute state. I leave the details of this period and the conflict to others. Japan won and extracted major concessions from China (Treaty of Shimonoseki) one of which was that China transferred full sovereignty of Taiwan (then called Formosa), the Pescadores (Penghu Islands) and the Liaodong Peninsula including Port Arthur, a warm water port. There were many other concessions. For the next 50 years Taiwan was a Japanese colony. Japan built railways, ports, and modern infrastructure; expanded education and public health; suppressed resistance movements; and encouraged Japanese cultural assimilation. The Taiwanese experienced both modernization and colonial subjugation during this 50-year era.

Return to Chinese Rule After World War II.  After World War II, Japan surrendered Taiwan to the Republic of China (ROC) government led by Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (KMT). However, tensions quickly emerged between local Taiwanese and mainland Chinese administrators. Corruption and economic disruption fueled unrest. In 1947 the February 28 Incident (often called the “2-28 Incident”) erupted after anti-government protests. The KMT violently suppressed the uprising, killing thousands. This became a foundational trauma in modern Taiwanese political memory.

Chinese Civil War and the Division of China (1949). The modern cross-strait conflict largely dates from the end of the mainland Chinese Civil War. In 1949 Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China (PRC; Communist China) on the mainland. Chiang Kai-shek and the ROC government retreated to Taiwan with roughly 1–2 million soldiers, officials, and refugees. From that point onward the PRC governed mainland China and the ROC governed Taiwan and several nearby islands. Both governments initially claimed to be the sole legitimate government of all China.

The Cold War and Modern Era. During the Cold War the United States supported Taiwan militarily and politically, while the PRC viewed Taiwan as a breakaway province that must eventually be reunified. Major crises occurred in the Taiwan Strait in the 1950s and again in 1995–1996 when missile tests and military exercises heightened tensions.

Taiwan under KMT rule was authoritarian for decades under martial law (1949–1987), a period known as the “White Terror.” Beginning in the late 1980s, Taiwan democratized: martial law ended, opposition parties were legalized, and free elections developed leading to modern Taiwan with its vibrant democratic and economic system.

Changing Identity

A significant development has been the growth of a distinct Taiwanese identity. Many residents now identify primarily as “Taiwanese” rather than “Chinese,” especially younger generations. At the same time, political opinion in Taiwan varies.  Some support eventual reunification with China, some favor maintaining the current ambiguous status, and others support formal independence. Most polling shows strong support for maintaining the current de facto independence without provoking war.

The Current Situation

Today the PRC claims Taiwan as part of China under the “One China” principle while Taiwan operates as a self-governing democracy with its own military, currency, constitution, and elections. Most countries, including the United States, do not formally recognize Taiwan as an independent state, but many maintain unofficial relations with it. The Vatican does recognize Taiwan (ROC) as an independent nation. The PRC has stated it seeks peaceful reunification but has not ruled out force. Taiwan rejects PRC rule under the Communist Party. This issue remains one of the most sensitive geopolitical flashpoints in the world.

Taiwan and the United States

Here in 2026 the relationship between the United States and Taiwan is intentionally close but formally unofficial. Since Washington shifted diplomatic recognition of China from Taiwan/ROC to the People’s Republic of China in 1979, the U.S. has recognized Beijing as the sole legal government of China under its “One China” policy, while simultaneously maintaining extensive political, economic, and military ties with Taiwan.

Politically, the United States supports Taiwan’s democratic system, its participation in international trade and selected international organizations, and the peaceful resolution of disputes. Washington does not officially recognize Taiwan as an independent state, but it strongly opposes any attempt to change Taiwan’s status by force or coercion. Militarily, the United States is Taiwan’s principal security partner and largest arms supplier. The U.S. is committed to helping Taiwan maintain a sufficient self-defense capability by providing defensive weapons, training, and military support. 

All-in-all, U.S. policy is “strategic ambiguity,” meaning Washington deliberately avoids stating explicitly whether American forces would directly defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack. While supplying Taiwan with arms the U.S. also avoids provoking open conflict with China.

Recently folks have been asking me about the U.S. Navy and what do I think about the current state of the fleet in the context of China, Taiwan, the Straits of Hormuz, and a host of related topics. And this is just a portion of fleet operational areas. There are current operations not only in the Indo-China theatre, but also in the Mediterranean, Caribbean, North Atlantic, and the western Pacific. It is a world-wide fleet as regards operations. It is also a fleet that is stretched thin and likely over extended. The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group just returned to Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia after a deployment lasting 11 months (326 days). This marked the longest U.S. aircraft carrier deployment since the Vietnam War. The crew was deployed to the U.S. 4th (SoCom – Caribbean), 5th (Bahrain – Persian and Arabia Gulf), and 6th Fleets (Mediterranean)  where they traveled over 57,713 nautical miles and participated in operations spanning Venezuela to the Middle East.

Because I graduated from the Naval Academy and served in the Pacific submarine force people assume I remain current about “things Navy.” My time of service was last century. Things have changed.  I suspect there is some assumption about my continued knowledge of the Navy and the Pacific given that this year I wrote 130 or so posts on the Asia-Pacific War (1937-1945) but that too was writing about things from the last century. But people also know I remain interested in such things – and so they ask me what I think about China, Taiwan and the U.S. Strategy in the Indo-Pacific. There is a wealth of open source information on all these things and so I have recently been researching facts, opinions, and think-tank publications to see the state of things. And now you know the genesis of this new series: China, Taiwan, and the U.S. Strategy in the Indo-Pacific.

When thinking about what I needed to know and what might be interesting and relevant, I came up with a preliminary list of topics that might become posts:

• A brief history of China, its relationships to Formosa/Taiwan, and an attempt to place that history in the context of key events of the 16th through 20th centuries. Just like the U.S., all nations have long memories of events and perceptions of those events – and that shapes current and future expectations and actions.
• An introduction to the South China Sea, a body of water I suspect people are not familiar with. The “northern border” extends as far north as Taiwan where it connects to the East China Sea and its neighbor, Japan.  The “eastern border” is Taiwan and the Philippine Islands. The “western border” is China and Vietnam. The “southern border” is Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Brunei. Simply put, these are disputed waters in terms of sovereignty, economic zones, international waters and transit zones, and The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
• What are the economic stakes of the above for the bordering nations and what does all of this have to do with maritime trade, supply chains, fishing rights, and security issues.
• What is the state and readiness of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) naval forces (PLAN)?
• What is the state of China’s shipbuilding capability? Sneak peak: it is massive, modern, and a mechanized tour de force.
• What is the state of U.S. shipbuilding? Sneak peak:…let’s just say it ain’t what it used to be. And that is being kind.
• What is the state and readiness of the U.S Fleet?
• What are China’s and the United States’ interest in the Indo-China theatre? What about the interests of Japan and Korea?.. And Russia is not without interests in the region as regards maritime routes.
• …and what about Taiwan? Officially we do not recognize Taiwan as a nation apart from China, but we are their major supplier of advanced weaponry – and Taiwan is our major supplier of advanced microchips… China’s too.

All of that goes into the “stew” of the mission. There are political goals and objectives that may or may not translate into concrete, definable mission and mission parameters. From a naval perspective the first question is the meaning of sea power. The late 19th century guru of such things was Alfred Thayer Mahan and his 1890 treatise, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783. He posited that national prosperity and global dominance are fundamentally tied to maritime supremacy, arguing that control of the seas determines the economic strength of a nation, leading to the rise and fall of empires. In World War II Japan based its entire war strategy, in large part, on Mahan’s concepts. Even 80 years ago, his theories were starting to show their age. He was a man of his age, and in his age, the dreadnought (battleship, heavy cruiser) was the apex predator of the oceans. During the War in the Asia-Pacific command of the seas was inextricably linked to aircraft carrier air superiority and intelligence operations. Coupled with logistic and manufacturing capability, the Allies were able to project land-sea-air dominance more than 5,000 miles from the west coast of the U.S. to the doorstep of Tokyo.

That was then. What about now? Long and short-ranged ballistic missiles and satellites fundamentally alter sea control. And that is just one part of the equation. Today, command of the seas is inextricably linked to controlling the sea, the air above it (all the way into space), and the ocean below. Surface-centric doctrines are incredibly vulnerable to modern anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities used by adversaries – adversaries who are peers in terms of fleets, technology and perhaps an order of magnitude more capable in terms of ship and weapon building. 

Prior to WW2, Japan was well aware that it needed to achieve an early decisive battle, not to defeat the U.S. but to get them to the bargaining table. It always knew it would lose a war of attrition. They were correct. What would we say about the China-U.S. options at the start of any conflict?

So, what do I think about the current state of our Navy in the context of China, Taiwan, the Straits of Hormuz, and other topics? I am not the best one to ask, but I am curious. I’ll let you know what I discover.

By the way if you are interested in the Asia-Pacific War\ series, the easiest way to access the series is through these two links:

https://friarmusings.com/world-war-ii/

https://friarmusings.com/world-war-2/