‘Chinese aircraft to monitor disputed seas'

‘Chinese aircraft to monitor disputed seas` Beijing: A Chinese maritime surveillance aircraft based in Shanghai will expand their area of coverage this year to include waters of the East China Sea disputed with Japan, according to local media.

The reports quote officials of the Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration as saying the plane's range includes China's territorial waters as well as what the country claims as its 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.

That would encompass the disputed territory known as the Senkaku Islands to the Japanese and as Diaoyu to the Chinese, as well as areas between the two countries where China has been unilaterally developing natural gas deposits to the consternation of the Japanese.

Under the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea, countries are entitled to claim 200 nautical miles from their shores as their EEZs. But the EEZs claimed by China and Japan overlap.