Post by tekmac on Feb 22, 2005 9:08:16 GMT -5
TOKYO, Japan (20 Feb 2005) -- 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.
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 d**e, 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.
SOURCE - Wall Street Journal
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.
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 d**e, 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.
SOURCE - Wall Street Journal