Japan yesterday approved a request by Teikoku Oil Co to drill for natural gas in the East China Sea along a disputed sea border with China, prompting Beijing to warn about the possibility of worsening ties.
Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said Tokyo would allow test drilling east of the line that Japan considers its sea boundary with China -- a demarcation that Beijing disputes. The permit lasts for two years but can be extended for a total of eight years.
Tokyo's announcement came nearly three months after Teikoku Oil had asked for government permission in late April for exploration rights.
Teikoku Oil, based in Tokyo, has said it wants to drill test wells in three areas spanning a total of 400km2. Teikoku Oil's Masaaki Akasaka said that officials would spend about a month discussing with the ministry how to ensure the safety of the company's workers in any possible standoff with Chinese vessels.
Following Tokyo's decision yesterday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) requested that Tokyo refrain from taking "action that will hurt China's sovereign right and hurt the bilateral relations between China and Japan."
"If Japan persists in granting drilling rights to companies in disputed waters it will cause a serious infringement of China's sovereign right," he told reporters in Beijing.
Though decades-old surveys have suggested that the East China Sea has potentially rich gas reserves, it's unclear how much actually lies beneath the sea floor.
China has already built a drilling platform west of the line that Japan regards as the two sides' sea boundary. But Tokyo has demanded Beijing stop exploration over worries that reserves on their side might be sucked dry.
Nakagawa denied that Tokyo was trying to "provoke China," adding: "This is just a domestic procedure."
He said that it was Tokyo's ``unavoidable responsibility to protect the activities of Japan's private sector.''
Asked whether that meant Tokyo would consider dispatching Japan's navy to protect Teikoku Oil workers, Nakagawa simply said: "We have various options."
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
RSS