主题:【原创翻译+评论】中日冲之鸟岛之争新动向 -- 你克我服
A Reef or a Rock?
Question Puts Japan
In a Hard Place
To Claim Disputed Waters,
Charity Tries to Find Use
For Okinotori Shima
By MARTIN FACKLER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 16, 2005; Page A1
TOKYO -- Yoshihiko Yamada is determined to find new ways to defend Japan's
territory from Chinese encroachment. Some ideas so far: building a prison, raising
tuna and breeding billions of micro-organisms.
Mr. Yamada is trying to find some economic use for Okinotori Shima, an uninhabited
coral reef that sits isolated in the deep blue Pacific Ocean 1,100 miles south of
Tokyo. No matter how far-fetched, the ideas he picks could become reality, thanks
to millions of dollars from Mr. Yamada's employer, the Nippon Foundation, a charity
that finances patriotic projects.
The charity is wading into a diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing over
Okinotori's status. For years, Japan has called Okinotori an island, which allows
Japan to claim not only sovereignty but also exclusive economic control of waters
extending out 230 miles, or 200 nautical miles, in every direction. This has
allowed Tokyo to claim 160,000 square miles of ocean -- an area larger than the
entire landmass of Japan.
[Yoshihiko Yamada]
Then, last April, Beijing suddenly cried foul. At a routine meeting of midlevel
diplomats from both sides, the Chinese representatives said their nation now views
Okinotori as just a rock. That definition doesn't question Japan's sovereignty. But
it would erase Japan's claim to the vast exclusive economic zone, or EEZ.
Chinese interest in Okinotori lies in its location: along the route U.S. warships
would likely take from bases in Guam in the event of a confrontation over Taiwan.
China's efforts to map the sea bottom, apparently so its submarines could intercept
U.S. aircraft carriers in a crisis, have drawn sharp protests from Japan that China
is violating its EEZ.
Still, U.S. and other experts on oceanic law and territorial issues say China's
challenge is valid. According to the United Nations Law of the Sea, established in
1982 and adhered to by 147 countries and territories, countries can have an EEZ
around only an island that has inhabitants, or self-sustaining economic activity.
But neither is the case with Okinotori Shima, which means "Island of the Sea
Birds." No one has ever lived there, and the atoll's entire exposed landmass is
just two mattress-sized boulders barely sticking of the water.
Experts say Japan's position is similar to a failed British attempt to claim an EEZ
around Rockall, an uninhabited granite outcropping in the Atlantic. London
eventually dropped its claim in the 1990s when other countries objected. "You
simply can't make a plausible claim that Okinotori should be able to generate a 200
[nautical]-mile zone," says Jon Van Dyke, a law professor at the University of
Hawaii specializing in oceanic law.
So far, Japan has gone to great lengths to prevent Okinotori from disappearing
altogether, but has done little to create economic activity. It has spent more than
$250 million to fortify each of the twin boulders with its own 83-foot-thick
concrete sea wall to protect it from typhoons. The smaller boulder was also covered
with a titanium screen to stop wave-hurled debris from chipping off a piece of it.
[ ]
So, because Japan did nothing after China's April 2004 rock proclamation, Mr.
Yamada swung into action. "Sometimes the private sector can be more efficient, and
come up with more realistic plans than the government," says the 42-year-old Mr.
Yamada. A former bond trader, he quit his job at a bank 14 years ago to do
something of social value. The Nippon Foundation, founded under a different name in
1962 by Ryoichi Sasakawa, a billionaire boat-racing tycoon who died in 1995, funds
everything from leprosy research to nationalistic projects like Okinotori.
As initial research, Mr. Yamada took 46 Japanese academics and journalists by ship
to the island in November to brainstorm ideas. There, the group used rubber
dinghies to land on the sea wall of one of the boulders, spending a few hours
photographing, measuring and taking samples from the outcropping before heading
back.
At Nippon Foundation's Tokyo headquarters, Mr. Yamada looked over more than a dozen
proposals made by his junketeers for creating self-sustaining economic activity on
the outcropping. One called for building a manned coral-research lab, but Mr.
Yamada thought it might be too expensive to shield it from Okinotori's waves, which
can tower as high as a four-story building during a typhoon. Another was to open
Okinotori to ecotourism, but the drab reef might not merit the long, grueling trip,
Mr. Yamada says. He also rejected a plan to cover the atoll with pavement or
landfill in order to build a prison. The submerged reef is about 2.7 miles long and
1.1 miles wide and the plan called for filling in part of it. "The island has to be
natural to qualify," he says.
Japanese officials and politicians say they welcome the Nippon Foundation's
efforts. After meeting with Mr. Yamada, Tokyo's outspoken nationalist governor,
Shintaro Ishihara, promised that the city would spend $5 million to implement
another proposal: creating a "tuna ranch" around Okinotori by floating buoys
carrying long ropes in the water, which cast shadows to attract the fish.
(Okinotori is technically part of Tokyo.) The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and
Transport, which administers the island, also says it will likely approve whatever
Mr. Yamada comes up with.
"We're happy the private sector is coming up with some creative ideas," says
Katsunori Kadoyu, an assistant director at the ministry.
Chinese analysts said the Nippon Foundation's moves would only worsen the situation
and blamed Japan for being more aggressive. "It's just one of the many new
developments from Tokyo of a strong military approach" to addressing diplomatic
issues, said Chu Shulong, a professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
So far, Mr. Yamada has decided to fund two projects. The first is a $10 million,
unmanned lighthouse. He says it would constitute economic activity because the
beacon would improve the safety of a busy nearby shipping route for carrying
Australian iron ore and other raw materials to Japan.
But Mr. Yamada's heart is in another, more ambitious project: To gradually expand
Okinotori's landmass until it's big enough to hold a permanent population. To do
this naturally -- and thus to abide by the Law of the Sea -- Mr. Yamada is hoping
to produce tons of sand using two methods. One is accelerating the growth of coral,
which is pulverized into sand by waves, by submerging hundreds of hollow concrete
"flower boxes" to shelter coral larvae. The other is to attract large numbers of
Foraminifera, hard-shelled microscopic organisms whose bodies become sand as they
die. Since Foraminifera are drawn to plants, there will be sheets of artificial
turf laid out on the atoll's floor.
"Humans have never tried to speed along the natural island-building processes
before," says one of the plan's authors, Makoto Omori, director of Akajima Marine
Science Laboratory, a private research center in Okinawa. A marine biologist, Dr.
Omori came up with the idea after studying how typhoons and currents created
islands naturally.
If the plan works at all, it will take decades or even a century before the island
is large enough to be useful, admits Dr. Omori. That doesn't deter Mr. Yamada. "The
Law of the Sea doesn't specify that economic activity has to start right away," he
says.
--James T. Areddy in Shanghai contributed to this article
- 相关回复 上下关系7
服兄真是日本问题专家,佩服佩服。 雨夫 字0 2005-05-11 16:46:02
谢nick兄 踢细胞 字0 2005-02-17 18:09:01
我吱啊 zchen75 字0 2005-02-17 13:05:23
给.....
你克兄是个好朋友! 顶一下先! 副将 字34 2005-05-11 17:37:25
😄原来我服兄搞原创来了 神仙驴 字40 2005-02-17 11:45:27
所以咱们只剩献花的份了哈 思考得人 字0 2005-02-17 21:09:08