Japan to protest China survey near Okinotori

Japan plans to lodge an official protest with China over its continued oceanographic surveying in Japan's exclusive economic zone around Okinotori Island, government sources said Sunday.

Japan urged China at a working-level meeting in Beijing on April 22 to stop the surveys, but Chinese officials claimed the surrounding waters cannot be regarded as an exclusive economic zone "because Okinotori Island is not an island but rocks."

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, all marine scientific research in an exclusive economic zone is subject to the consent of the coastal state, which has sovereignty over natural resources and certain economic activities within a 200-nautical mile zone of its territory's coastline.

But the convention also stipulates that in most cases, coastal states are obliged to grant consent to other states when the marine research is to be conducted for peaceful purposes and fulfills specified criteria. It also stipulates that rocks that cannot independently sustain a settlement or economic activity will have no economic zone.

Japanese officials believe China is conducting the surveys to create a map of the seabed for submarines, the sources said.

"China is perhaps claiming that Okinotori Island is just rocks to justify that it can continue its military surveys in waters near the island," a Foreign Ministry source said.

The uninhabited island, also known as the Douglas Reef, is Japan's southernmost point, located 1,740 km south of Tokyo. It is surrounded by about 10 km of coral reefs. Two rocks on the island remain above sea level during full tide.

According to the sources, the Japanese government determined that Chinese marine survey vessels have committed Japanese exclusive economic zone violations in 19 cases in the Pacific Ocean since last year.

"About half of the cases were concentrated in the exclusive economic zone near Okinotori Island," a senior Foreign Ministry official said.

Japan plans to make it clear to China that Okinotori is naturally formed land that is Japanese territory and that it meets the conditions for classification as an island as stipulated under the U.N. convention, the sources said.