China has a long-standing historic claim to sovereignty over the features in the South China Sea known as the Spratly Islands, which it refers to as the Nansha Islands. China has consistently objected to sovereignty claims of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei over some of the islands.The infamous nine-dashed line found in Chinese maps of the South China Sea has prompted critics to describe its claim as a “territorial waters” claim; they assert that either China is claiming sovereignty over all the waters within the nine-dashed line or it is claiming 80 % of the South China Sea as its own. However, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reiterated that China is not claiming sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. Although China has not completely clarified its nine-dashed line, in official diplomatic notes to the United Nations, it has claimed sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and their adjacent waters. It is generally agreed that “adjacent waters” refers to the 12 nautical mile (nm) territorial sea which can be claimed from any land territory, including islands. Further, China has also stated in its official diplomatic notes that the Spratly Islands are entitled to an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf under Chinese law and under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). A State does not have sovereignty in its EEZ or on its continental shelf, but it does have “sovereign rights” and jurisdiction for the purpose of exploring and exploiting the natural resources of the sea-bed and subsoil in its EEZ and on its continental shelf.