U.S. and China have established a bilateral forum to resolve differences over application of UNCLOS

In addition to filing diplomatic protests, conducting operational assertions and continuing to conduct routine operations in China’s EEZ, the United States also embarked on a bi-lateral approach to working with the People’s Republic to resolve the aforementioned differences in interpretation and application of the Law of the Sea. In 1998, the United States and China signed the bi-lateral Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA) to establish “a stable channel for consultations” between the two nations in order to “promote common understanding regarding activities undertaken by their respective maritime and air forces when operating in accordance with international law including the principles and regimes reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”42 Since the EP- 3E incident the two governments have used the forum to discuss some of the issues and differences raised by the incident. Such issues discussed included military activities in the EEZ, including surveillance and military surveys, the right to distress entry and communications between the two country’s military forces.43