The Taiwan Strait is not "owned" by a single entity in a universally recognized legal sense, but rather is a highly contested waterway. The People's Republic of China (PRC) asserts full sovereignty over the Strait, claiming it as part of its internal waters and rejecting any notion of it being international waters in its entirety. Conversely, Taiwan (Republic of China, ROC), which governs itself independently, claims sovereign rights over its territorial waters within the Strait and asserts that broader areas are international waters, a position largely supported by the United States and other nations that conduct freedom of navigation operations there.
The geopolitical status of the Taiwan Strait is a direct legacy of the Chinese Civil War, which concluded in 1949 with the Communist Party establishing the PRC on mainland China and the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government retreating to Taiwan. Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary, and considers the Strait an integral part of its sovereign territory. This claim extends to categorizing the Strait as predominantly internal waters, rather than international seas where freedom of navigation applies universally. Taiwan, while officially adhering to a "one China" policy that asserts Taiwan is part of China, effectively operates as a sovereign state, controlling its territorial waters and airspace.
The Strait is a critical international shipping lane, connecting major economies in Northeast Asia with the rest of the world. Its strategic importance attracts significant international attention, especially from the United States, which maintains an unofficial security relationship with Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act and regularly conducts freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) through the Strait, challenging Beijing's expansive claims. The current influence score of 41/100 highlights the significant contestation and lack of clear, undisputed control over the waterway.