The ROC currently claims exclusive jurisdiction over the Orthodox Christians, irrespective of their ethnic background, who reside in the former member republics of the Soviet Union, excluding Georgia and Armenia. Such countries as Estonia, Moldova, and Ukraine dispute this claim and have established parallel canonical Orthodox jurisdictions: the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, the Metropolis of Bessarabia, and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, respectively. The ROC also exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the autonomous Church of Japan and the Orthodox Christians resident in the People's Republic of China. The ROC branches in Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s enjoy various degrees of self-government, albeit short of the status of formal ecclesiastical autonomy.