China provided the UN with detailed claims to waters in the East China Sea on Friday, apparently padding out its legal argument in an ongoing territorial dispute with Japan.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it submitted documents claiming waters extending beyond its 200 nautical mile (370km) exclusive economic zone. It said geological features dictated that China’s claim extended to the edge of the continental shelf off the Chinese coast, about 200km from Japan’s Okinawa Island.
A statement posted on the ministry’s Web site gave no specifics, but China had pledged to make such a submission shortly after its dispute with Japan over the uninhabited Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan and the Diaoyu (釣魚) in China, flared again in September. Taiwan also claims the islands.
Japan angered China by buying three of the islands from their private Japanese owners to block a rival bid by Tokyo’s nationalist mayor, a move Japan had hoped would prevent a bigger crisis.
Violent anti-Japanese protests then broke out across China to assert what many Chinese believe is their country’s ages-old claim on the rocky outcrops.
China’s move is a way for it to underscore its claim, but will have little real impact. The UN commission to which it submitted its claim, which comprises geological experts, evaluates the markers on technical grounds, but has no authority to resolve overlapping claims.
The UN submission represents one aspect of China’s approach to the dispute. Another involves dispatching vessels to patrol in the area and confront Japanese coast guard ships.
On Thursday, China for the first time dispatched a plane over the islands, prompting Tokyo to accuse it of violating Japanese air space. The Japanese Defense Agency said four Japanese F-15 jets headed to the area in response, but the non-military Chinese plane was nowhere to be seen by the time they got there. The Japanese Foreign Ministry said a formal protest was sent to Beijing through its embassy in Japan.
China in turn protested what it said were Japanese military planes entering its airspace near the islands.
“The Foreign Ministry has urged the Japanese side to take China’s solemn position seriously and stop all acts that infringe upon or harm China’s territorial sovereignty,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) said.
“China’s maritime surveillance plane flying over the Diaoyu Islands is completely normal,” Hong said, adding they were “China’s inherent territory since ancient times.”
The US also voiced concern on Friday after the incident.
“It’s important to avoid actions that raise tensions and to prevent miscalculations that could undermine peace, security and economic growth in the region,” US Department of State acting deputy spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.
Washington had raised its concerns with Beijing, he said, adding that the US made clear that its “policy and commitments regarding the Senkaku Islands are long-standing and have not changed.”
US officials had also talked to the Japanese government, he added.
SOLVED: Domestic orders have already overtaken the total sold to China last year, while the Canadian and US representative offices posted messages of support A joint effort by groups and individuals in Taiwan and abroad to prop up sales of pineapples after China announced a ban on imports of the fruit succeeded in just four days, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said yesterday. China on Friday announced that it would suspend imports of Taiwanese pineapples starting on Monday, citing biosafety concerns. Following the announcement, the council urged the public to assist farmers by purchasing pineapples, saying it hoped to sell 20,000 tonnes of the fruit domestically and 30,000 tonnes in exports. “Domestic orders have already surpassed the total sold to China last year,” COA Minister
‘UNFRIENDLY’: COA Minister Chen Chi-chung said that Beijing probably imposed the sanction because the pineapple production season is about to start in Taiwan More than 99 percent of pineapples sold to China passed inspections, the government said yesterday, after China earlier in the day abruptly suspended imports of pineapples from the nation, which Taipei called an “unfriendly” move. From Monday, China is to stop importing pineapples from Taiwan, the Chinese General Administration of Customs said. The regulation is a normal measure for ensuring biosafety, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) said in a news release later yesterday. Since last year, Chinese customs officials have repeatedly seized pineapples imported from Taiwan that carried “perilous organisms,” Ma said. Were the organisms to spread in China, they would
Taiwanese netizens and politicians yesterday mocked a Chinese plan to build a transportation network linking Beijing and Taipei, calling it “science fiction” and “daydreaming.” Their comments were in reaction to the Chinese State Council’s release last week of its “Guidelines on the National Comprehensive Transportation Network Plan,” which include several proposed transportation links, with one map showing a line running from China’s Jingjinji Metropolitan Region (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) across the Taiwan Strait to Taipei. “This is the Chinese leadership daydreaming again of [fulfilling its] fantasy of extending China’s transportation network to Taiwan. I suggest people regard it as science fiction,” Democratic Progressive
‘ONE PERSON PER UNIT’: People undergoing home isolation cannot stay in a housing unit in which non-isolated people live, unless they have special approval Starting tomorrow, people under home isolation would be required to follow the “one person per housing unit” rule if in private housing, or stay at a quarantine hotel or centralized quarantine facility, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said the rules require people under home quarantine to be quarantined with one person per housing unit, or at a quarantine hotel or centralized quarantine facility. “Starting on March 1, individuals under home isolation will also be subject to the ‘one person per housing unit’ rule,” he said. “We
RSS