How many natural resources are there in the waters near Japan? Possibility of Japan including EEZ.
2022-04-13 Category:Japan
Trauma of Japan, a country without resources
Japan is in a state where marine resource development is almost untouched. As a resource-poor country, it depends on foreign countries for many natural resources including oil. In World War II, the ABCD siege was laid down as a country without resources, and it became a state like a military siege. And he was defeated by the overwhelming quantity of America. It is no wonder why marine resource development did not progress after the war. It seems that there are many people who argue that searching for resources may start the war again because they lost the war because they lacked resources, but this is a completely different story.
The area of Japan that is never small
Japan has a land area of 380,000 ㎢, ranking 62nd out of 196 countries in the world. It is easy to think that Japan is a small country because Japanese people tend to look to the top class such as the United States, China and Russia, but Germany, Finland and Poland have smaller areas. However, Japan is a maritime nation. Looking at the total ocean area of the territorial waters, contiguous waters, and EEZ, Japan is the sixth largest in the world with 4.47 million ㎢. If the extended continental shelf is added, the area of Japan's land area is added to 4.65 million ㎢, and the area that Japan can mine independently is 5.03 million ㎢.
China is covered by Japan and Taiwan, and the sea occupied by China is small. That is why they dream of expanding into the ocean, but China has a land area of 9.6 million ㎢, and in fact Japan has about 52.4% of the Chinese continent including the sea. Since China has a large land area, natural resources and oil are mined. However, Japan's undersea resources are still unknown.
Rare earths, oil, these are the introduction
According to a survey by teams such as Waseda University and Tokyo University, hundreds of years of global demand for rare earths, which are indispensable for the manufacture of precision equipment, will be on the seabed around Minamitorishima in the Ogasawara Islands in 2018. Research teams at Ibaraki University and Hokkaido University have announced that the world's largest oil field may be sleeping off the coast of Izura in Ibaraki Prefecture in 2020.
The Basic Ocean Law was enacted in April 2007 and came into effect in July of the same year. The Basic Law on the Ocean shows the basic principles such as the harmony between the development and utilization of the ocean and the conservation of the marine environment, and the responsibilities of the national and local governments. It also stipulates that a basic ocean plan should be established approximately every five years, and that the Cabinet should have a General Ocean Policy Headquarters headed by the Prime Minister. In the current basic ocean plan decided by the Cabinet in April 2013, after clarifying the "ideal vision of Japan as a maritime nation," efforts that should be promoted with priority in light of changes in the social situation regarding the ocean. It shows the direction of measures related to the ocean. In addition, it specifically describes the efforts that the government should implement comprehensively and systematically in about five years in the 12 fields stipulated as "basic measures" in the Basic Ocean Law. -The existence of energy and mineral resources such as oil, natural gas, methane hydrate and submarine hydrothermal deposits has been confirmed in Japan's territorial waters, EEZ, and continental shelf, and Japan has the potential to become a resource-rich country.
The 2007 Basic Law on Oceanography was enacted at the time of the First Abe Cabinet, and Japan's undersea resource survey began in earnest. If Japan becomes a resource-rich country ... You wouldn't have thought about that. Because Japan is a small country ... No. Seafloor exploration is likely to be a breakthrough. There may come a time when Japanese people don't have to work hard.