China Accused of Theft in Gas Dispute With Japan

A senior Japanese politician has likened China's development of gas fields in disputed waters to theft, in remarks likely to strain bilateral ties just days before the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, flies to Tokyo for fence-mending talks with the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe.

Shoichi Nakagawa, the Liberal Democratic party's policy chief and a close ally of Mr Abe, hinted that Japan had not responded strongly enough to Chinese exploratory drilling in an area of the East China Sea that both countries say falls within their respective economic zones.

"If a thief broke into your house and opened the drawers and tried to take your wallet, the natural thing to do is to say, 'Don't open the drawers; don't take the wallet,'" the Japanese media reported Mr Nakagawa as saying.

"But that has not been the case. Are we really serving our people by keeping quiet and just watching out wallet be taken?"

The countries are discussing possible joint development of the area's potentially rich gas reserves, but have failed to agree on where their sea boundaries end. Japan is concerned that a Chinese consortium is already siphoning off valuable resources from the Japanese side of the disputed demarcation line.

Scientists from both countries met earlier this week, and arrangements are being made for senior officials to hold more talks before Mr Wen arrives in Japan on Wednesday.

"We are hopeful that [Mr Wen's] upcoming visit will provide political impetus to push forward the negotiations," Mr Abe's spokesman, Hiroshi Suzuki, told the Guardian. "Both sides share the feeling that we want to make as much progress as we can on this."

Government officials refused to comment on Mr Nakagawa's remarks. "What is important is that we have forward-looking discussions at the Japan-China summit," the chief cabinet secretary, Yasuhisa Shiozaki, told reporters today.

Wen's trip will be the first to Tokyo by a Chinese premier since Zhu Rongji visited in October 2000, shortly before Sino-Japan ties sank to their lowest point in decades.

Chinese leaders were furious when Mr Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, made annual visits to Yasukuni, a war shrine in Tokyo that many regard as a throwback to Japanese militarism.

Hopes for a thaw in bilateral ties were raised when Mr Abe visited Beijing soon after taking office last October.

Although he supports prime ministerial visits to Yasukuni, Mr Abe has stopped short of worshipping there himself since becoming prime minister in an apparent conciliatory gesture to China. He has refused to say whether he is considering a pilgrimage to the shrine.

Mr Wen, however, made it clear he would not let the Yasukuni issue rest. "Individual Japanese leaders have visited [Yasukuni] numerous times and hurt the feelings of the Chinese people, greatly affecting Sino-Japanese relations," he told reporters in Beijing. "I hope this will never happen again."

Mr Abe would not be drawn on a possible visit to Yasukuni, where 14 class-A war criminals are honoured along with 2.5 million other Japanese war dead. "The situation is as I have said in the past," he said. "My thinking will not change."

Mr Wen is expected to defend China's ballooning military budget during the talks. Mr Nakagawa is one of several Japanese politicians to have voiced concern about China's military spending. Earlier this year he said Japan would become "just another Chinese province" within the next 20 years if spending continues at its current rate.

Mr Wen said: "The key point is that China's limited military power is used to safeguard the country's security and unification."