South Korea may become a new party to the disputes between China and Japan in the East China Sea when it submits its formal claim regarding its continental shelf to the United Nations, the Seoul-based Yonhap news agency reported on Oct 22.
By submitting its official documents to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, the Republic of Korea expects to claim that the Korean peninsula's continental shelf extends itself to the Okinawa Trough. "Our basic position is that Korea's continental shelf reaches Okinawa," said Han Hye-jin, spokesman for the country's foreign ministry. With the significance of the trough as a geological feature already contentious in the dispute between China and Japan regarding natural resources believed buried beneath the seabed, the situation will be even more complicated after South Korea becomes involved.
Read the full story at Want China Times