Japan said yesterday that China has started production of gas or oil in a disputed energy field in the East China Sea where Chinese warships were recently spotted, and it would consider countermeasures.
Japanese officials have spotted flames spouting out of a Chinese drilling facility just on China's side of what Japan says is a dividing line in the potentially lucrative field. China does not recognize the line.
"We are not sure whether it is oil or gas. But we have confirmed that they have finally started digging," Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa told a news conference.
PHOTO: AFP
"The government is coordinating to consider ways to deal with this. The facility is located in the area of the dispute, although it is not clear whether the gasfield crosses the median line," he added.
Japan says that China, even if it digs from its side, could extract Japanese resources underground. It wants an agreement between the two countries before either starts extraction.
China and Japan, whose relations have worsened this year, have repeatedly protested to each other over the disputed field. But a series of high-level meetings has led to no agreement other than to continue dialogue.
In Beijing foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang (
Qin told reporters that China's East China Sea drilling was within its rights.
"China's exploration in the gas field is being conducted in uncontested waters," he said.
However, Qin said, China was willing to conduct talks with Tokyo on the drilling question.
"The principle of the Chinese side is that we hope that the issue between China and Japan in the East China Sea can be handled by dialogue and negotiation," he said.
Nakagawa said he hoped Japan and China would resume dialogue on the issue. Qin said only that arranging the next round "requires further contact and consultations by the two sides."
Japan said Chinese warships were seen near the gasfield for the first time on Sept. 9, two days before Japan's general election. China said they were on a routine drill.
China began test-drilling unilaterally in the East China Sea in 2003. Japan accuses Beijing of reaching into Tokyo's exclusive economic zone, and in July the government for the first time granted a Japanese firm permission to explore the area.
A Japanese survey in 1999 estimated that the disputed field held a massive 200 billion cubic meters of gas.
The gas dispute stems from a disagreement over which sea resources the two sides can claim in the East China Sea, which separates China's eastern coast and Japan's southern island chain of Okinawa.
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, coastal countries can claim an economic zone extending 200 nautical miles (370km) from their shores. Both Japan and China signed the treaty, but the UN has until May 2009 to rule on the claims.
China also bases its claim on a separate international treaty that lets coastal countries extend their borders to the edge of the undersea continental shelf.
Japan and China, two of the world's biggest energy importers, have also clashed over securing priority to an oil pipeline being built in Russia.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ¥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000