China’s Taiwan Strait traffic control scheme part of ‘salami slicing’ strategy

Lt. Col. Uilisone F. Tua/U.S. Army

In early August 2026, China’s Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) announced and sought to enforce a dayslong “traffic control scheme” for northbound vessels entering the Taiwan Strait. The MSA asserted that passing vessels must “strictly comply with traffic control requirements” and “obey the instructions of on-site maritime management agencies.” The pretext was a typhoon approaching the East China Sea.

The directive met immediate resistance. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council and Coast Guard condemned the announcement, emphasizing that the Taiwan Strait consists of international waters where Beijing has no right to control navigation.

By purporting to manage maritime safety in the face of natural disasters, Beijing seeks to carve out, de facto, its own jurisdiction over an international waterway. The global community should see this for what it is: a coordinated attack on freedom of navigation.

The maneuver did not occur in a vacuum. It is part of a two-pronged strategy: while China’s military applies pressure on one side, civilian agencies use bureaucratic rules on the other to slowly tighten their grip.

Two months earlier, from June 6 to 10, the MSA conducted a so-called maritime law enforcement mission east of Taiwan, hailing commercial vessels to assert domestic jurisdiction, according to the United States-based Institute for the Study of War. Simultaneously, China Coast Guard ships have maintained continuous patrols east of Taiwan, while state-controlled media framed a Sino-Indonesian naval exercise as a demonstration of China’s “sovereign rights and jurisdiction” over the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) east of Taiwan. Jakarta denied involvement in the claim.

Beijing’s attempts to aggrandize its rights in the Taiwan Strait, a vital global trade route, while constraining other nations’ rights have no basis in international law. When analyzed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which China is a signatory, the Guangdong MSA’s traffic control scheme is flagrantly illegal.

The strait is widely used for navigation between the East China and South China seas and its legal status as an international waterway is firmly anchored in UNCLOS. Under Article 3, coastal states are restricted to establishing a territorial sea of no more than 12 nautical miles. The Taiwan Strait is 70 to 120 nautical miles wide, leaving a continuous and substantial central waterway.

Crucially, UNCLOS Article 36 dictates that transit passage regimes do not apply to an international strait if there exists a route of “similar convenience” through the high seas or an EEZ. Consequently, within the strait’s continuous central corridor, Articles 58(1) and 87 legally preserve the high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight for all nations.

By attempting to mandate domestic administrative “traffic control” over foreign vessels traversing the corridor, China is restricting those high seas freedoms, which directly violates UNCLOS.

Even in areas of the strait where territorial waters might overlap or constrict, navigation is governed by the strict regime of transit passage under Part III of UNCLOS:

• The Right of Unimpeded Passage (Article 38): All ships and aircraft enjoy the right of transit passage, which “shall not be impeded” as long as the transit is continuous and expeditious. A coastal state cannot unilaterally shut down, restrict or condition this transit.

• The Unilateral Fallacy (Article 41): While a state bordering an international strait may designate sea lanes or prescribe traffic separation schemes for safety, it cannot do so unilaterally. Article 41(4) explicitly dictates that coastal states must refer such proposals to “the competent international organization” — the International Maritime Organization (IMO) — with a view to their adoption. China did not submit its traffic control scheme to the IMO; it unilaterally decreed the measure under domestic maritime authority.

• The Absolute Prohibition on Suspension (Article 44): Bordering states are legally bound: “There shall be no suspension of transit passage.” By commanding foreign vessels to halt, alter course or “strictly comply” with domestic MSA instructions, Beijing violated its affirmative duty under Article 44.

By framing naval exercises and traffic schemes as proof of “sovereign rights and jurisdiction” over the EEZ east of Taiwan, China deliberately misinterprets the nature of an EEZ.

Under Article 56, a coastal state’s sovereign rights in the EEZ are strictly functional, limited to economic exploitation (such as fisheries and seabed minerals) and specific jurisdictional matters (such as marine scientific research). It does not grant general police power or traffic management over foreign vessels. Therefore, China’s attempt to govern navigation in the EEZ under the guise of domestic maritime safety is an unlawful expansion of coastal state jurisdiction.

Countering ‘Salami Slicing’

China’s traffic control scheme is a calculated, incremental effort aimed at long-term dominance, a strategy known as “salami slicing.” It is an example of gray zone lawfare — the use of legal and administrative pretexts to alter the status quo.

By using an approaching typhoon as justification, Beijing hoped to accomplish three things:

• Establish a precedent of administrative control: If foreign commercial vessels comply with the MSA’s instructions “for their own safety,” Beijing will cite this compliance in future disputes as evidence that the international community recognizes its domestic jurisdiction over the strait.
• Lower the threshold of escalation: Interdicting a vessel under the guise of maritime safety and humanitarian concern is less likely to trigger a military response than a standard naval blockade, yet it achieves the same geopolitical outcome — creeping closure of the strait.
• Test international resolve: Force nations with freedom of navigation rights through the strait to choose between protesting a purported safety measure during a storm or allowing an illegal expansion of jurisdiction to pass unchallenged.

Ensuring safety at sea is a noble and legally recognized duty. However, UNCLOS provides clear, multilateral avenues for managing maritime emergencies through the IMO. It does not allow coastal states to use bad weather as an excuse to rip up the rulebook of global navigation.

As the U.S. State Department noted in response to China’s actions, the international community must counter destabilizing narratives and assert that weather safety is a matter of international cooperation, not domestic hegemony. If maritime rules and norms are to survive, Beijing cannot be allowed to use a natural storm to create a geopolitical one.