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NEW YORK, Aug. 25 -- China has lodged opposition with a U.N. panel to Japan's bid to extend its continental shelf in the western Pacific, arguing that what Japan claims is an island is merely a rock, according to a letter sent to the panel, a copy of which Kyodo News obtained Tuesday.

In the letter to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, dated Monday, China dubbed what Japan calls Okinotori Island, about 1,700 kilometers south of Tokyo, Japan's southernmost point, as the ''rock of Okinotori, which obviously can not sustain human habitation or economic life of its own, shall have no continental shelf.''

China urged the panel not to handle an application Japan submitted last November for the extension of its continental shelf stemming from the disputed spot.

''Since the rock of Okinotori does not have any ground to claim continental shelf, it is not within the mandate of the commission to make any recommendation,'' China said.

Japanese diplomatic sources said a subcommission of the panel will take up the issue in September considering both Japan's application and the Chinese opposition to it.

Beijing has acknowledged Japan's territorial right to the spot but opposed Tokyo's claim to an exclusive economic zone stemming from it.

It lodged official opposition to the Japanese claim with the panel, whose session began at U.N. headquarters Monday.

Lying midway between Taiwan and Guam, the contested spot lies in a strategically important spot.

==Kyodo

Document KYODO00020090826e58q000xd