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."
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS