all the islands claimed by the Philippines lie within its 200-mile exclusive economic zone according to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This argument assumes that the islands were res nullius. The Republic of the Philippines also contend, under maritime law that the People's Republic of China can not extend its baseline claims to the Spratlys because the PRC is not an archipelagic state. The People's Republic of China (China) and the Republic of China (Taiwan) The People's Republic of China (PRC) claims are based on history and not UNCLOS. However, the PRC still claims all of the Spratly Islands as part of China. The PRC is a party to the UNCLOS, signing the agreement on 29 July 1994. The Republic of China (ROC), which ruled Mainland China before 1949 and has been confined to Taiwan since 1949, also claims all of the Spratly Islands. Basis for the PRC's and the ROC's claims Chinese fishermen have fished around the islands since 200 BC. China claims to have discovered the islands in the Han dynasty in 2BC. The islands were claimed to have been marked on maps compiled during the time of Eastern Han dynasty and Eastern Wu (one of the Three Kingdoms). Since the Yuan dynasty in the 12th century, several islands that may be the Spratlys have been labelled as Chinese territory according to the Yuanshi, an official history commissioned by the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty in 1369, which has been subject to criticism for its lack of quality and numerous errors. This labeling has also occurred in the Qing dynasty from the 13th to 19th century; the islands may have appeared on a 1755 map, among others. Archaeological surveys have found the remains of Chinese pottery and coins in the islands, cited as proof for the PRC claim, but they are more likely to have come from shipwrecks of passing Chinese junks. In the 19th century, Europeans found that Chinese fishermen from Hainan annually sojourned on the Spratly Islands for part of the year, while in 1877 it was the British who launched the first modern legal claims to the Spratlys. When the Spratlys and Paracels were being surveyed by Germany in 1883, China issued protests against them. China sent naval forces on inspection tours in 1902 and 1907 and placed flags and markers on the islands. The Qing dynasty's successor