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China welcomes UN rejection to Japan's island claim

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail CNTV, May 17, 2012
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China has welcomed a UN decision to reject Japan's claim over the geopolitical classification of the Okinotori Atoll.

Okinotori Atoll is an outcropping in the Philippine Sea, some 17-hundred kilometers south of Tokyo. It's only about 10 square meters above sea level at high tide. According to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, rocks that cannot sustain human habitation or economic activity do not have exclusive economic zone or continental shelf status.

China and South Korea have opposed Japan's claim. Recently, Japanese media said the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf adopted Okinotori Atoll as an "island". That could then be used as a territorial base point.

However, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has denied Japan's rights to the outcropping:

"The areas claimed by Japan as part of its outer continental shelf but not accepted by the commission include the 250-thousand-square-kilometer southern Kyushu-Palau ridge based on Okinotori Atoll. As mentioned by the Japanese side, the commission recognized the Shikoku Basin Region north of Okinotori Atoll as part of Japan's outer continental shelf. But in fact the recognition was based on other parts of Japan's land territory, not related to Okinotori Atoll."

 

 

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