Testy relations between China and Japan were further strained this week when Tokyo signalled its intention to explore gas fields in the contested seabed between the two countries.
The Japanese Trade Ministry started accepting bids from companies to drill in a region just east of what Tokyo describes as a median line separating the countries’ exclusive economic zones.
But China disputes the border and has already started test drilling, giving it a headstart in a race to secure potential energy resources.
Japan says the Chinese drilling encroaches on its territorial waters, but Beijing has ignored demands to halt drilling and share the results. The prospects for a joint drilling project appear dimmer than ever.
The regional powers are already locked in a bitter dispute over what China calls Japan’s refusal to face up to the full horror of its conduct in Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Japanese Education Ministry’s approval of school history textbooks that China says play down Japan’s wartime atrocities set off violent protests in Beijing and other Chinese cities last weekend. The Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, said on Tuesday that unless Japan confronted its past it should reconsider its quest to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
The Japanese Trade Ministry said it would sift through the test-drilling applications ”as quickly as possible”, but the process could take up to three months.
Beijing did not immediately respond to the announcement but a state councillor, Tang Jiaxuan, said the energy dispute was a factor behind deteriorating bilateral ties, and warned Tokyo that awarding test-drilling rights would ”bring about further complications”.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said that the decision to invite the bids had ”nothing to do” with last weekend’s anti-Japanese protests, for which Tokyo has demanded an apology and compensation. — Â