China rejects joint gas development with Japan
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-09 19:29

China on Thursday rejected a Japanese proposal for the joint development of disputed natural gas deposits in the East China Sea.

The two countries have been feuding over the deposits, which lie near Okinawa in Japan's south. China claims it has rights to the natural gas, but Tokyo says the two countries should share them.

Negotiators met in Beijing this week to hammer out a solution to the dispute and discuss a Japanese proposal on joint development.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Beijing disagreed with Japan's demarcation of their territories, effectively rejecting the proposal.

"China doesn't accept this middle line and will not accept this line in the future," Qin said at a regular press briefing.

He also defended China's past extraction of gas from that median line, saying that the area was not claimed by Japan. But the work has triggered protests from Tokyo, which fears reserves in the area might run dry.

Tokyo in July gave Japanese company Teikoku Oil Co. drilling rights in the disputed area, but drilling has not begun.

"China is carrying out gas extraction in parts of the East China Sea that are not under dispute and therefore China's views on the issue are more in keeping with the actual situation," Qin said.

Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, coastal nations can claim an economic zone extending 370 kilometers (230 miles) from their shores.

Both Japan and China signed the treaty, but their claims overlap in the disputed area and the United Nations has until May 2009 to rule on the matter.

China's rebuttal came after Japan on Wednesday rejected a separate Chinese proposal to jointly explore separate deposits near the disputed Senkaku islands.

Beijing and Tokyo have a long-running conflict over the islands _ called Diaoyu by China and Senkaku by Japan _ which are believed to lie near oil and gas resources.