Japan said yesterday it has begun processing applications to let Japanese companies drill for natural gas in a disputed area of the East China Sea, a decision likely to further inflame Tokyo's worst diplomatic row with China in decades.
The flare-up -- which began last week as part of a long-standing feud over Japan's wartime atrocities -- risks jeopardizing Tokyo's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and blocking the countries' flourishing trade and investment ties.
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said it will approve corporate bids "as quickly as possible" for deep-sea gas exploration in waters just east of what Tokyo says is its sea border with China. Beijing disputes that border.
A ministry official said approval was expected within two to three months.
China's Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment. The two countries' foreign ministers were scheduled to hold two-day talks in Beijing starting Sunday.
Tensions have escalated since last week, when Tokyo approved new Japanese history textbooks that critics say play down Japan's wartime atrocities.
That triggered anti-Japan protests on Saturday in China's capital, where an angry mob hurled rocks and bottles at the Japanese Embassy, smashing windows.
The rift reflects a fierce rivalry between Japan and China over regional dominance and potentially rich energy sources needed to power their massive economies.
Experts said relations between the two nations had sunk to their worst in three decades.
"They haven't had a falling out like this since establishing diplomatic ties in 1972," Tokuji Kasahara, a professor at Tsuru University, west of Tokyo, and an expert on Japan-China relations.
Tokyo repeatedly has accused China of exploring the oil fields in Japan's exclusive economic zone, demanding that Beijing halt the activities or share the results. Last week, Trade Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said Tokyo would go ahead with plans to let Japanese companies begin test-drilling in early April.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi denied that Tokyo's decision was prompted by China's handling of the protests or Beijing's refusal to apologize.
"It's only a procedure. We will handle it in an orderly manner," Koizumi said.
History has affected Japan's relations with its neighbors for decades.
China, South Korea and other Asian nations have long accused Japan of failing to express adequate contrition for its conquests of the 1930s and 1940s, during which China says as many as 30 million of its people died. The suspicions have only deepened with Koizumi's annual visits to a Tokyo shrine honoring Japan's war dead -- including convicted World War II criminals -- and Tokyo's push for a higher profile on the global stage with a dispatch of peacekeeping troops to Afghanistan and Iraq.
The economic and political repercussions of Tokyo's dispute with Beijing are huge.
China is Japan's second-biggest trading partner, behind the US, with two-way shipments totaling US$170 billion last year. Political discord could hurt Japanese companies' chances of winning infrastructure projects in China, possibly disrupt shipments from those companies' China-based plants and spark boycotts of Japanese goods by Chinese consumers.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats