Shanghai Daily | 上海日报 -- English Window to China News

THE sovereign rights of the Chunxiao oil and gas field in the East China Sea belong to China, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said in Beijing yesterday.

The "cooperative development" of the Chunxiao oil and gas field between Chinese and Japanese enterprises is different from the "joint development" of the East China Sea, Wu told a press briefing.

According to the China-Japan principled consensus on the East China Sea issue, Chinese enterprises welcome the participation of a Japanese legal person in the development of the existing oil and gas field in Chunxiao.

This is in accordance with the laws of China on cooperation with foreign enterprises in the exploration and use of offshore petroleum resources.

The development of Chunxiao oil and gas field must be conducted in accordance with Chinese law, Wu said.

"This indicates that the sovereign rights of Chunxiao oil and gas field belong to China," Wu said.

Foreign companies in China's coastal areas and Chinese companies in other nations have conducted cooperative development in the same way as in Chunxiao, Wu said.

Chinese oil companies have cooperated previously with foreign oil firms such as Unocal Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Group in Chunxiao.

The two companies quit the cooperation for business reasons, Wu said, noting that the nature of the participation of a Japanese legal person in the Chunxiao development is exactly the same as that of Unocal and Shell.

Wu said Japan's agreement on participating in the development of the oil and gas field in Chunxiao in accordance with the laws of China and Japan's acknowledgement of China's sovereign rights over Chunxiao is one of the important preconditions of the consensus on the East China Sea issue.

Another precondition is that the consensus would not damage China's sovereignty and jurisdiction in the East China Sea, and would not damage China's legal stances over the East China Sea issue.

China does not recognize Japan's claim of a so-called "median line" in the East China Sea, and there is no existence of the issue of demarcating the "median line" between the two nations, Wu noted.

China holds to delimit the East China Sea in the principle of the natural extension of its continental shelf, while Japan claims to divide by a "median line" between the two countries' coasts.

"Such a dispute is hard to resolve within a short period of time. But if it cannot be solved well, it will definitely disturb the overall situation of China-Japan ties," Wu said.