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China, Japan resume talks on disputed gas drilling
The negotiators will not release details of the discussions until they end on Saturday. It was the third round of talks the two sides have had on the dispute in the past year. National broadcaster NHK later reported that the Chinese delegation reiterated its stance that the drilling takes place within its territory and should not be a source of concern. Last week, Japan lodged a protest against China's drilling for gas after Tokyo said it had confirmed that China was extracting natural gas from the Tianwaitian oil field in the East China Sea between eastern China and Japan's southern island chain of Okinawa. China said, however, that it was within its rights to continue new gas drilling activity in the area. Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which both Japan and China have signed, coastal countries can claim an economic zone extending 230 miles from their shores. The disputed site lies within both countries' claims, and the United Nations has until May 2009 to rule on the matter. China also bases its claim on a separate international treaty that lets coastal countries extend their borders to the edges of their undersea continental shelves. In July, Beijing formally protested Tokyo's decision to give private oil company Teikoku Oil Co. drilling rights in the disputed area, calling it a severe provocation. Teikoku and several other Japanese oil companies had first applied for drilling rights in the late 1960s, following a U.N. report about possible rich undersea deposits. But China was the first to launch an exploration and started building an undersea pipeline last year, Japan says. Tokyo has since demanded that Beijing stop exploration over worries that reserves on the Japanese side might be sucked dry.
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