Japan moves to prevent Chinese spying on its seabed
- Tokyo has become suspicious of the activities of Chinese research ships operating in its waters
- It is enlisting the help of civilian ships and domestic companies to keep a closer eye on them
The measures include requiring civilian ships to report the presence of foreign vessels carrying out underwater research and insisting that domestic exploration companies hired by third parties divulge where the data will end up.
In recent years, Japanese coastguard vessels and long-range reconnaissance aircraft have identified Chinese government ships carrying out what appears to be research on the seabed and water conditions within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from its territorial waters.
And there is concern that China may also be seeking data within Japan’s territorial waters, which extend 12 nautical miles from its coastline.
In January 2019, Japan made an official protest to Beijing after a Chinese government survey vessel was found operating within Japan’s EEZ around Okinotorishima, an atoll 1,740km south of Tokyo.
Operated by China’s State Oceanic Administration, the vessel may have been trying to obtain data on valuable natural deposits below the seabed, including oil and gas, but it may also have been seeking deep water passages that would allow Beijing’s growing fleet of submarines to emerge undetected into the Pacific from the shallow coastal waters between mainland China and the islands that hem the Chinese navy in.