- by Graham Holton
- The Guardian
- Issue #2124
Photo: Artanisen – Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The Chinese Foreign Minister, Mao Ning, has condemned Japan’s unilateral move to increase the size of its continental shelf, in contravention of the United Nations Commission the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Japan has expanded its size by 120,000 square kilometres in the Ogasawara Plateau, 1,000 km south-east of Tokyo. Mao Ning told the Chinese media website Xinhua: “What Japan has done contravenes the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the international practice.” Japan has contravened “the stipulations of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and universal practice,” said Mao Ning.
According to the reporter Qin Lizhi of the China Military Online, Japan has expanded its continental shelf to the largest extent possible, maximising its maritime rights, while maintaining its stand on the “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea. China notes that Japan is active in the United States’ “Indo-Pacific strategy,” it has significantly increased its defence budget, been politically involved in China’s South China Sea, and discharged nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean. “Such selfish behaviours will erode the legitimacy of international norms, undermine the existing maritime order, and aggravate territorial disputes on the sea and the upgrading of a naval arms race.”
UNCLOS requires that the maximum extent of a country’s continental shelf cannot be more than 350 nautical miles from the 100 nautical mile limit. A country can claim control of the seabed beyond the traditional 200-nautical-mile limit for its exclusive economic use only if it can prove the ocean floor is connected to its continental shelf.
For Japan to extend its new continental shelf beyond its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) it needs approval by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and agreement from relevant countries. Japan’s minister for ocean policy, Yoshifumi Matsumura, said: “The expanded continental shelf represents around half of the area of Japan’s Honshu main island to exercise our sovereign rights to explore the continental shelf and develop natural resources.” The move will give Japan the rights to the fishing and mineral resources of that area.
Japan is striving to secure its own mineral resources by extracting rare metals from Japan’s deep-sea floor, which contains significant amounts of copper, nickel, and yttrium. These minerals are crucial for high-tech industries, such as batteries and semiconductors. Japan’s 2023 National Security Strategy emphasises the importance of minerals in an increasingly tense Indo-Pacific region. Mining rare earths is in conflict with China’s economic interests, as it holds a large market share of the world’s rare earths. Japan has recovered rare earth minerals from depths of more than 6,000 metres, and plans to begin industrial-scale mining in 2027.
Japan’s continental shelf expansion will embroil the region into conflict with China. In April 2024, Japan was cleared to join the AUKUS group, giving Japan access to nuclear powered submarines. Japan is now seeking to join the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, along with the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
