Thu Mar 10, 2011 - BEIJING, March 10 (Reuters) - China on Thursday reasserted its control over a disputed area in the East China Sea where its leading offshore oil firm said it has been producing oil despite objections from Japan.
"China has complete sovereignty over the Chunxiao oil and gas field and administrative authority," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters at a regular news briefing.
"China's relevant activities in the Chunxiao area are reasonable and lawful," Jiang said, adding that China's control over the waters meant they were "not disputed". She did not say if China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) had actually been pumping oil from the Chunxiao field.
On Tuesday, Song Enlai, chairman of CNOOC's board of supervisors, told media in Beijing that the state-owned company had been producing oil from the field, known as Shirakaba in Japan, prompting Japanese officials to cry foul.
Asia's two largest economies agreed in 2008 on principle to resolve the territorial feud by jointly developing gas fields, but efforts have foundered since then and Japan has accused China of drilling in violation of the agreement.
Japan's foreign minister on Thursday said China had denied Song's comments.
"China has told us that the report is not true. They said the person named in the report has retired from ... the company and that the comments do not represent the position of the Chinese government," Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto, who took over the post on Wednesday, told reporters.
"On the East China Sea, we have agreed to reach an international deal, so we would like to see progress on this," Matsumoto said.
Ties between China and Japan chilled in September following a territorial spat over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, and the two governments have also been at odds over China's search for natural gas and oil.
Tensions in other Asian waters have also been high as China seeks resources to feed its booming economy.
The Philippines filed a complaint with China over an incident in early March in a disputed area of the South China Sea where Manila says two Chinese patrol boats threatened to ram a Philippines-contracted survey ship exploring for natural gas.
China and the Philippines are among six countries that claim the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, a territory believed to be sitting on rich deposits of oil, gas and minerals. (Reporting by Michael Martina; Additional reporting by Chisa Fujioka in Tokyo, editing by Miral Fahmy)
source: af.reuters.com
