Japan protests China surface radar in disputed sea

TOKYO

Japan has lodged a protest with China following the discovery of a surface radar installed on a Chinese gas drilling platform in seawaters where the countries’ economic claims overlap.

Japanese news agency Kyodo cited a government source as saying Sunday that the radar in the East China Sea is used to detect vessels and lacks the power necessary for military purposes, but nonetheless stressing concerns about such structures serving as military posts in the future.

Japan’s defense ministry has confirmed that China has 16 structures in the area, with drilling platforms and foundations located near a median line between the countries’ shorelines.

Tokyo has been concerned about the sharing of undersea resources in the East China Sea, and earlier this year a panel of the ruling party urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government to take the matter to an international court.

In some areas, the exclusive economic zones claimed by the countries -- and the exclusive right to undersea resources within 200 nautical miles of its coastline that comes with it -- overlap.

In 2008, both countries had agreed to share the resources and split the difference in their respective interpretations of the boundary -- soon after, China started exploratory drilling.

Meanwhile, Japan’s coast guard revealed Sunday that two Chinese coast guard vessels had entered the island nation’s “territorial waters” around the disputed Senkaku Islands in the sea, with seven more Chinese ships seen in a nearby contiguous zone.

On Saturday, the foreign ministry lodged a protest with Beijing after around 230 Chinese fishing boats and seven coast guard ships were spotted in the contiguous zone.

The Senkakus -- which China calls the Diaoyu Islands -- are a group of uninhabited islets currently controlled by Japan.

High-level dialogue between China and Japan had been suspended for two years prior to a meeting in Nov. 2014 between their leaders due to tension following the Japanese government’s purchase of three of the disputed islands in September 2012.