South Korea Seeks Progress In Talks With China On Maritime Demarcation, Steel Structures

SEOUL, Jan 6 (Bernama-Yonhap) -- South Korea hopes to see progress in talks with China on pending maritime issues in the Yellow Sea, including the demarcation of sea boundaries and steel structures set up by Beijing in the overlapping waters, South Korean foreign ministry official said Tuesday.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the official made the comments after the two Asian neighbours agreed to resume vice-ministerial talks on the maritime demarcation within this year during the summit talks between South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Chinese President Xi Jinping the previous day.

That would mark the resumption of the dialogue on the delimitation of sea boundaries after a seven-year hiatus. In 2014, Seoul and Beijing agreed to hold annual vice minister-level talks and regular working-level follow-up meetings but failed to follow through on the commitment largely due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The last vice ministers' talks took place in 2019, four years after the previous round.

"The vice ministerial talks will focus on maritime boundary demarcation and are aimed at injecting momentum into the process," a ministry official told reporters.

"The two sides share the view that the Yellow Sea should be a sea of peace and coexistence, rather than one of confrontation and conflict, and this holds significance for South Korea-China relations," he said.

The two sides have remained far apart in their positions on the demarcation of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a sea zone over which a country has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources.

Seoul maintains that the EEZ should be demarcated by drawing a median line, whereas Beijing argues it should be drawn in proportion to the lengths of the coasts and population along them.

The EEZ stretches out to 200 nautical miles from the coastline.

The envisioned resumption of the high-level EEZ talks adds optimism to the prospects for their ongoing separate dialogue on China's steel structures built in the Provisional Maritime Zone (PMZ), an issue over which tensions have flared up between the two countries in recent months.

Beijing has installed several steel towers in the PMZ, where the two countries' EEZs overlap, claiming they are fish farms and management facilities.

Seoul has raised concerns that China may be laying the groundwork for future territorial claims to the waters, similar to its construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea, where it has ongoing disputes with neighbouring countries.

"While the demarcation talks are not completely separate from the issue of the steel structures, they are proceeding on a separate track, and (the talks on the steel structures) will continue through the existing channel," the official said.

"On the issue of steel structures, we see room for some progress through the working-level meetings held so far," he added.

-- BERNAMA-YONHAP