China calls Japan gas drilling plan 'provocation'

China calls Japan gas drilling plan 'provocation'

Scott Hillis and Linda Sieg, Reuters/Beijing/Tokyo

China called Japan's plan to allow gas exploration in disputed waters a serious provocation on Thursday, but sought to rein in anti-Japanese sentiment that sparked violent protests last weekend.

Japan avoided escalating the war of words, saying dialog was needed to resolve the feuds. China also called for talks.

Simmering tensions between the two Asian giants over a range of topics, especially what Beijing sees as Japan's failure to own up to wartime atrocities, erupted in China at the weekend, with thousands taking part in protests in cities across the country.

The situation deteriorated on Wednesday after Japan announced it had started procedures to allocate rights for test-drilling in a disputed area of the East China Sea.

"This move by Japan is a serious provocation of China's rights and international norms," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said on the ministry's Web site.

"China has already made a protest to Japan and reserves the right to take further reaction," Qin said, without elaborating.

Later on Thursday, Qin said: "We strongly demand the Japanese side attach importance to the Chinese side's serious concern. The consequences hinge on the Japanese side."

He repeated Chinese opposition to Japan becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council, saying: "We hope the Japanese side will fulfil its promise to seriously re-examine its history of aggression."

China and Japan, respectively the world's second- and third- biggest oil consumers, are at odds over China's exploration for natural gas near an area Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone.

Asked about Qin's remarks, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda urged dialog.

"As the prime minister said yesterday, it is in the interest of both Japan and China to make the East China Sea a sea of cooperation rather than a sea of confrontation," Hosoda, Japan's top government spokesman, told a news conference.

"We believe that we need to discuss this from a broad perspective."

The weekend protests, triggered by Japan's approval of new school history textbooks critics say whitewash its military aggression and colonization, also took aim at Tokyo's bid for a permanent Security Council seat.

Since then, the two sides have traded barbs, each pointing the finger at the other.

But on Thursday, China tried to smooth over the dispute in talks with senior Japanese and South Korean diplomats in Beijing.

"China is trying to cool down the people and appealed to them to avoid extreme activities," Xinhua news agency said.

Cui Tiankai, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Department of Asian Affairs, told his Japanese and South Korean counterparts the three countries had a responsibility to develop "stable and friendly" relations.

"It is the responsibility not only to our own people, but also to Asia as a whole," Xinhua quoted Cui as saying. In part, that meant drawing the "right lessons" from the past.

The trilateral meeting "gives us an extra window of opportunity and widens the possibility for improvement and recovery" of relations, Cui said.

Chinese activists have called for more protests in Beijing and Shanghai this coming weekend, but it was unclear whether they would be allowed to happen.

One of the organizers of china918.net, a Web site promoting China's version of the history of Japan's wartime aggression, said it had been ordered to delete online bulletin board messages calling for people to participate in new protests.

Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura repeated Tokyo's demand for an apology and compensation for damage caused during last weekend's China protests.

"Whatever the reason, destructive actions are not acceptable," he told a parliamentary panel. "We cannot accept remarks which appear to put the blame on Japan."

China, Qin said, opposed excessive actions, but he did not apologize. The spokesman blamed some Japanese media for "beautifying (Japan's) history of aggression".

Minister Machimura heads for Beijing on Sunday for talks aimed at seeking a way out of the impasse that has put Sino-Japanese ties in the worst state in decades.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi may meet Chinese President Hu Jintao at an Asia-Africa summit in Indonesia next week.

China overtook the United States as Japan's biggest trading partner in 2004 with about $178 billion in two-way exchanges. Japanese corporations sank about $9.2 billion into China that year.

In the energy dispute, Japan considers waters east of the midway point between its coastline and that of China to be its exclusive economic zone, but China does not recognize the line.