Protests likely to continue as key wartime memorial day looms
Beijing announced yesterday it
will submit a partial submission concerning the outer limits of the continental
shelf to the United Nations in its latest move to defend its maritime
sovereignty.
The move came as the Japanese
prime minister vowed to take the Diaoyu Islands (known in Japan as Senkaku
Islands) dispute to the UN General Assembly.
Beijing is calling for people to
express their demands in a "legal and rational way".
Protests against Japan broke out
across China over the weekend in what observers described as the largest
demonstrations against Japan in China since 1972 when diplomatic relations were
normalised.
Experts said the protests could
continue for days. Tuesday, Sept. 18, is a memorial day marking Japan's wartime
occupation of parts of China.
The Foreign Ministry announced
yesterday that China has decided to submit its Partial Submission Concerning
the Outer Limits of the Continental Shelf beyond 200 Nautical Miles in the East
China Sea to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf under the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The ministry said technical
preparations for the State Oceanic Administration's submission "are close
to completion".
According to the convention, if
the continental shelf of a coastal state extends more than 200 nautical miles,
information on the limits of the continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical
miles shall be submitted by the coastal state to the commission.
Zhang Haiwen, deputy director of
the China Institute for Marine Affairs, said China's decision to submit the
outer limits of the continental shelf in the East China Sea to the UN is both a
commitment and a counter-measure.
"China has kept its promise,
made in 2009, that it would offer a submission to the Commission on the Limits
of the Continental Shelf under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea at an appropriate date. Now, since preparations are close to being
completed and tensions over the Diaoyu Islands are escalating, China has
announced the decision," Zhang explained.
The move came one day after the
SOA announced the exact longitude and latitude of Diaoyu Island and 70 of its
affiliated islets while publishing location maps, three-dimension graphs and a
sketch map for the islands.
On Sept 10, the government
announced the coordinates of the territorial waters of Diaoyu Island and its
affiliated islets, as well as the names and coordinates of 17 base points,
after Tokyo said it decided to "purchase" three of the Diaoyu Islands
that day.
China has filed a copy of the
government's Diaoyu Islands baseline announcement to UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon.
The Kyodo news agency in Japan
reported yesterday that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda plans to stress
the importance of handling territorial issues in accordance with the "rule
of law" during the UN General Assembly later this month, if he wins, as is
expected, the Democratic Party of Japan's leadership race scheduled for Sept.
21.
However, to avoid his UN speech
"inciting antagonism", Noda will avoid using the Japanese names of
the Diaoyu Islands and the islands over which Japan and South Korea are in
dispute, it said.
Sunday also marked the resumption
of activities by Chinese fishermen after months of recess.
Chinese trawlers have been
disrupted in their work by Japan for a number of years.
In September 2010, a Chinese
trawler collided with Japanese Coast Guard patrol boats near the islands. The
collision, and Japan's subsequent detention of the trawler captain, resulted in
a major diplomatic dispute between the two nations.
Six Chinese surveillance ships
have started patrolling waters around the Diaoyu Islands, that belong to China,
since Friday morning.
Angry protesters against Japan's
provocations took to the streets in Beijing and many other cities yesterday.
The emotions have spilled abroad,
with more than 10,000 Chinese people rallying in Los Angeles to protest against
Japan. The organisers said such protests are expected to spread in North
America.
There have been reports of damage
to Japanese cars, Japanese supermarkets being targeted and attacks against
Japanese companies in some Chinese cities.
The isolated attacks immediately
prompted calls for calm and a more rational approach, and warnings from the
authorities against breaking the law.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong
Lei had said on Friday that the protests were not directed at the Japanese
people.
"The rights of Japanese
citizens in China are protected under law. And we ask Chinese citizens to
express their demands in a legal and rational way," Hong said.
"Raging expressions of
patriotism will only bring joy to the [Japanese] evil doers, put our foreign
policy on the defensive and wound the feelings of compatriots," the
official People's Daily, the Communist Party's main paper, said in a website
commentary yesterday.
Noticeably, Noda said yesterday
the other pillar of his policy is "level-headedness".
"It is important to remember
that we are the world's second and third-largest economies, and growth in China
means opportunities for Japan," he said.
Rana Mitter, professor of the
History and Politics of Modern China at Oxford University, said the US does not
want a crisis just ahead of November's election.
David Fouquet, senior associate
at the European Institute for Asian Studies, said others outside the region
should refrain from any involvement that could make matters more difficult.
Gao Hong, deputy director of the
Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said
Noda is likely to win the party vote because few people are willing to
"take over the mess".
Gao emphasised that China has
sufficient historic and legal evidence to prove that the islands are an
inherent part of China.
Complicating the situation,
Japan's newly designated ambassador to China, Shinichi Nishimiya, 60, died in
Tokyo yesterday, Japan's Foreign Ministry said, without specifying.
Nishimiya, who was officially
appointed on Tuesday, was taken to hospital after falling ill on a street near
his home on Thursday.
Nishimiya had planned to leave
for Beijing in October. The government is now considering a replacement from
among retired foreign ministry officials, local reports said.
The Diaoyu Islands were illegally
seized by Japan at the end of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), but the
islands were returned to China in key declarations following the end of World
War II.
Liu Jia in Brussels and Zhang Chunyan in London and Xinhua contributed
to this story.
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