SOUTH CHINA SEA (August 20, 2020) Boatswain’s Mate 2nd Class Terry Schoenherr, from Mount Vernon, Ill., looks through binoculars on the bridge wing as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin (DDG 89) conducts routine operations. Mustin is forward-deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Cody Beam)
SYDNEY — As South Korea’s political structure totters in the wake of former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s removal, China is said to have built a large structure in a disputed area of the Yellow Sea.
The South Korean daily Chosun first reported the development late last week, citing government officials, alleging that South Korean intelligence first detected the structure in December. A diplomatic source based in Canberra confirmed the outline of that report to Breaking Defense.
The structure was installed in the Provisional Measures Zone of the Yellow Sea. Activities such as facility construction or resource development, except for fishing, are barred there by a 2001 agreement between South Korea and China. Chosun reported China has previously claimed other facilities were fishing support facilities. Representatives at the Chinese Embassy in Canberra did not respond to Breaking Defense’s request for comment.
“This is a wake up call to the potential threat from China. Not even the North Koreans will be happy about this,” Chun In-bum, former deputy commander of South Korea’s First Army, said in an email to Breaking Defense. “I guess China is not satisfied with just the South China Sea/ Phillipines Sea.”
China and South Korea have a host of disputed territorial claims in the Yellow Sea and, although they have met reputedly since 2015 to discuss them, they have made little progress, according to experts.
“As you know, China keeps doing that kind of thing around Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Philippines. We are concerned and trying to know what is their intention,” a Canberra-based diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
Two analysts told Breaking Defense it’s likely that Beijing sees an opportunity in South Korea’s political chaos. Yoon stunned the world when he declared martial law and was then impeached by Korea’s parliament. However, he clings to office, backed by armed supporters who guard his residence. South Korea’s Constitutional Court must decide Yoon’s fate, and its hearings are expected to begin on Tuesday.
This could “well be China taking advantage of the political turmoil in South Korea to make moves Seoul has and will continue to object to. However, these moves are not new. Seemingly, as China-South Korea relations had been improving, China’s construction in the West Sea had stalled,” Jenny Town, an expert on regional Korean and Chinese issues at Washington’s Stimson Center said in an email. “But with Yoon blaming Chinese influence as one of the key rationales for his botched martial law plan, Beijing may have decided there was no reason to refrain from further action.”
Town said China’s building “isn’t new behavior, but it seems increasingly clear that it’s not a temporary strategy or that China will relent on the ambition anytime soon,” she wrote. “It is something that China and South Korea will have to continue to contend with.”
China has repeatedly attacked, bullied and threatened vessels belonging to Philippines and Vietnam, claiming jurisdiction over waters international law places under their — not Chinese — jurisdiction. There are many overlapping and conflicting claims in the South and East China Seas, involving Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia and others, but China presses on, claiming that its”historic” claims and Chinese law grant it control of those areas.
“We have seen similar behavior in both the South and East China Seas, and certainly we see a similar dispute between Japan and China in the East China Sea. This seems to indicate that the West Sea is not immune to this kind of behavior,” Town said.
