(Adopted at the 3rd Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress and promulgated and come into force on the date of June 26, 1998)

Article 1 This Law is enacted to ensure that the People's Republic of China shall exercise its sovereign rights and jurisdiction over its exclusive economic zone and its continental shelf and safeguard its national maritime rights and interests.

Article 2 The exclusive economic zone of the People's Republic of the China is the area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea of the People's Republic of China, extending to 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured. The continental shelf of the People's Republic of China is the sea-bed and subsoil of the submarine area that extend beyond its territorial sea throughout the natural prolongation of its land territory to the outer edge of the continental margin, or to a distance of 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured where the outer edge of the continental margin does not extend up to that distance. The People's Republic of China shall determine the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf in respect of the overlapping claims by agreement with the states with opposite or adjacent coasts in accordance with the equitable principle on the basis of international law.

Article 3 In the exclusive economic zone, the People's Republic of China exercises sovereign rights for the purposes in terms of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources of the waters superjacent to the sea-bed and of the sea-bed and its subsoil, and with regard to other activities for economic exploitation and exploration of the zone, such as the production of energy from the water, current and wind. The People's Republic of China has jurisdiction over the establishment and use of artificial islands, installations and structures, marine scientific research, the protection and preservation of the marine environment in the exclusive economic zone. The natural resources in the exclusive economic zone referred to in this law consist of living and non-living resources.