TOKYO: Japan has lodged a protest with China over its continuing development of gas fields in the East China Sea in defiance of an earlier agreement to jointly tap the resources.
“It is highly regrettable that Beijing is still unilaterally developing those gas resources,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga at a Sept. 16 news conference. “We will continue to protest in an effort to prevent further development.”
The Japanese Foreign Ministry released on its website aerial photos showing signs of progress at four of the 16 offshore gas drilling platforms.
The gas fields in question are situated near the median line between the coasts of the two countries. Japan also made a protest and released photos to show China’s unilateral gas field development in July.
Beijing, however, dismissed Tokyo’s actions at that time, saying, “China is developing the gas fields in waters within its jurisdiction and within the bounds of sovereignty.”
Since then, the Japanese government has spotted flares at two more gas drilling rigs, which are a telltale sign of gas production. According to the Foreign Ministry, only the foundations were observed at two of the drilling rigs in July.
But mobile drilling equipment has been added at one site, and pipes laid at another. Tokyo and Beijing have been at odds over the boundary of their exclusive economic zones.
Japan insists on the median line as the proper demarcation, while China argues that a line along its continental shelf, to the east of the median line, is appropriate. The two countries agreed on joint development of the gas fields in 2008, and began negotiations in July 2010 on a treaty stipulating their respective shares of the resources.
But negotiations were shelved after bilateral relations soured over an incident off the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea in September 2010 when a Chinese fishing vessel rammed Japan Coast Guard boats patrolling the waters there.
The Japanese government’s decision to place three of the uninhabited islands under state ownership after purchasing them from private ownership in September 2012 angered China.
