Japan may take China before an international maritime tribunal over a disputed gas field in the East China Sea (ECS), Bloomberg reported Monday.

Referring to the Chunxiao oil and gas field, which Japan calls Shirakaba, and an agreement reached in 2008 between Beijing and Tokyo on disputes in the ECS, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano was quoted in the report as saying, "Naturally, we may consider taking appropriate action if the agreement isn't observed."

"We'll negotiate with China as to what specific things might be done," Hirano added.

The Mainichi newspaper also reported that Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's administration may bring the case before the International Tribunal for the Law.

Japan has insisted that under the agreement, the two countries would solve ECS disputes by jointly developing gas fields, and has since accused China of drilling in the Chunxiao field.

However, during his visit to Tokyo in January, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told his Japanese counterpart that the Chunxiao field is not a disputed area and China "enjoys sovereign rights over it."

"Japan can make an investment to participate in the cooperative development (of the Chunxiao field) according to Chinese law, which is different in nature from joint development (of those disputed areas)," Yang said.

China and Japan have overlapping exclusive economic zones (EZZ) in the ECS that have caused disputes over natural resource fields in the area.
However, the Chunxiao gas field lies within China's EZZ, four kilometers west of the border of the Japanese EZZ.

"Appealing to a maritime tribunal will not help in solving ECS disputes between China and Japan," Feng Zhaokui, deputy director with the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. "The two sides have gone through years of talks without major progress. It is not rational to expect a maritime court to solve them swiftly without creating more disputes."

"Hirano's words are more like an attention-shifter, as Hatoyama's government is in trouble with a descending approval rating. However, it isn't wise to bring up the Chunxiao field, since it is not a disputed area at all," Feng added.

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