South Korea and its Allies and Partners should prevent the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) attempts to normalize its sovereignty claims over a disputed maritime area, analysts say.
The PRC, for years, has used illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive tactics to assert its arbitrary claims over vast stretches of the South China Sea — claims contested by countries including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and declared invalid by an international tribunal in 2016.
Recent PRC activity suggests Beijing is attempting to do the same in waters it shares with South Korea, analysts say.
South Korean officials said in early January 2025 that the PRC had installed a steel structure in disputed waters west of South Korea, according to The Chosun Daily. Using reconnaissance satellites, South Korean intelligence agencies detected the structure in December 2024 and estimate that it exceeds 50 meters in width and height, the Seoul-based news service reported.
The structure is in the Provisional Measures Zone (PMZ) in the Yellow Sea, which South Korea calls the Western Sea. The zone is where the exclusive economic zones of the two countries meet and was established in 2001 to manage claims to the area. Building any kind of facility and conducting activities unrelated to fishing are banned in the area until the dispute is settled.
The PRC installed two similar structures nearby in April and May 2024, prompting protests by South Korea.
“It is likely that these recent actions are tied to a … strategy that slowly encroaches on this area in ways that over the long term reinforces [the PRC’s] claims,” Terence Roehrig, an East Asian security expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told VOA.
The goal “is to slowly force the target state to accept a new normal in the area,” he said. “Seoul must ensure that does not happen by continuing to assert its position and insist that the delimitation of these waters be settled through negotiation.
“China views the Yellow Sea as a crucial area for its security and potential gateway into the Chinese heartland. It is likely that eventually, these structures may have some military use,” he added.
The PRC’s tactics seek to blur the line between legal and illegal through paramilitary coercion designed to weaken an adversary over time. They include dredging and militarizing artificial maritime features in disputed waters and incursions by China Coast Guard and maritime militia vessels into other states’ waters.
“The incident demonstrates China is using the same strategy it employed in the South China Sea with South Korea now,” said Rahman Yaacob, research fellow for the Southeast Asia program at the Lowy Institute, an Australia-based think tank.
The PRC has a military base on an artificial maritime feature it built at Mischief Reef, which is part of the Spratly Islands chain in the South China Sea. The reef is claimed by multiple countries that have condemned the PRC’s military buildup.
In the PMZ, meanwhile, Beijing might want access to “the mineral rights under the sea and to be able to transit freely in the area so it can control commerce and flow of activities in the area,” said David Maxwell, vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Asia Pacific Strategy.
Sustained structures in the region could impact the naval operations of South Korea and the U.S., he noted.
“It’s important that South Korea, in particular, but also the United States, Japan and other allies do not allow China to normalize its activities,” Maxwell said. “That’s what it wants to do — normalize its presence so it can claim it as its sovereign territory.”
