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China conducts aerial surveys past median line, Japan balks+
(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)WASHINGTON, April 1_(Kyodo) _ China has conducted aerial surveys several times this year beyond the "median line" with Japan in the East China Sea amid an ongoing bilateral gas exploration dispute, leading Tokyo to lodge complaints with Beijing through a diplomatic channel, sources close to the matter said Saturday.
After Beijing notified Tokyo of the plan in advance, Japan urged China to provide information such as the purpose of surveys, but the Chinese side carried them out without responding, the sources said.
The sources said they were apparently part of China's explorations for natural resources.
Some political analysts said they believe China was trying to see how Japan would respond to the moves at a time when bilateral ties remain strained due to the gas dispute and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors war criminals along with the war dead.
Japan has not yet disclosed the incidents because it is now considering how to respond after it determines China's intention such as whether the surveys were for marine research or natural resource exploration, the sources said.
The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea allows signatory nations to reject resource exploration in their exclusive economic zones by other nations, while it principally provides for giving consent to marine research.
Japan and China have an agreed mechanism to notify each other in advance when they plan to carry out surveys with research ships in the East China Sea. But they do not have a similar framework for aerial surveys.
At stake is the long-standing row between the two nations over gas exploration rights in the East China Sea that stems from disputes over demarcation of their overlapping 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones.
Japan wants to decide the zones through the "median line" demarcation principle, while China maintains the principle of "continental shelf" in claiming its rights to marine resources east of the median line to the edge of the shelf near Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa.
While gas fields being developed by China are on the Chinese side of the Japan's proposed demarcation, Tokyo is worried that the proximity of the projects to the line makes it possible for China to siphon off resources that lie under the seabed in the Japan-claimed waters.
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