BEIJING (Kyodo) China has hit Japan's allocation of part of its fiscal 2010 draft budget for infrastructure building on Okinotori Island to keep it from submerging into the sea, which Beijing says Tokyo would use to claim jurisdiction over a large sea area and exclusive economic zone.

"Japan's way to claim jurisdiction in a large sea area (around the island) goes against the convention as well as common interest of the international community," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a news conference Thursday, referring to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Okinotori, a tiny rock outcropping about 1,700 km south of Tokyo, lies midway between Taiwan and Guam.

Citing the convention, Jiang said that given the outcropping's geographic features, Japan should not claim an exclusive economic zone or a continental shelf around what it calls its southernmost point.