New | Japanese town in bid to upgrade status of rocks to islands in East China Sea

A local government in south-west Japan has announced it will apply to Tokyo to upgrade the status of three uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea to islands in order to enlarge and protect the nation’s exclusive economic zone.

Reclassifying the outcrops as islands is likely to be a further bone of contention in an area where China, South Korea and Japan are already making competing claims to airspace and the areas of the ocean that they cover.

The local authority in the town of Goto, a community on the island of Fukue that earns a living primarily from fishing, intends to change the name of Kita Iwa - meaning North Rock - to Kita Kojima, which is translated as North Small Island.

Similarly, Middle Rock will become Middle Island and South Rock will be known as South Small Island.

“The town council is going to apply to the national government next month to change the names,” Minoru Kubo, an official in the mayor’s office told The South China Morning Post. “As soon as the government has given approval, we will change the names, although we do not know how long that will take.”

The three outcrops are approximately 60 km south-west of Fukue Island and stand as much as 16 metres above the surface of the ocean. In total, the three rocks have a total surface area of less than 190 square metres.