Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Japan sets up showdown with China over East China Sea drilling

Japan on Thursday 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.

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 400 square kilometers (160 square miles). Teikoku Oil's Masaaki Akasaka told The Associated Press 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. He declined to elaborate.

Tokyo and Beijing have been feuding over claims to the undersea gas deposits, amid a broader diplomatic row that has soured bilateral relations in recent months. The gas dispute stems from a disagreement over how much sea resources the two sides can claim in the East China Sea, which divides China's eastern coast and Japan's southern island chain of Okinawa.

Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, coastal countries can claim an economic zone extending 200 nautical miles (230 miles, 370 kilometers) from their shores. Both Japan and China signed the treaty, but the United Nations 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.

Following Tokyo's decision Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao 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. The gas is vital to Asia's two largest economies as they try to secure resources to fuel future growth.

China has already built a drilling platform west of the line that Japan regards as the two sides' sea boundary. But Tokyo has demanded that Beijing stop exploration over worries that reserves on the Japanese side might be sucked dry.

Thursday's decision is expected to give Tokyo leverage in pressing its case with China.

Nakagawa, the trade minister, denied that Tokyo was trying to "provoke China," adding: "This is just a domestic procedure."

He said 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."

Teikoku Oil already applied in 1969 and 1970 to drill in the area but Thursday's approval applies to a more specific region based on studies the company conducted in the 1980s and research carried out by the Japanese government, according to Teikoku Oil. (By Kenji Hall, Associated Press Writer)

July 14, 2005



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