Bonus Crossover Episode with China Global Podcast: China-Korea Yellow Sea Dispute
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I'm Bonnie Glaser, Managing Director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Welcome to the China Global Podcast. In today's episode, we're digging into the evolving dispute between China and South Korea over their unresolved maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea.

There's a long history of fishing disputes between the two countries in the Provisional Measure Zone, or PMZ, of the Yellow Sea, which is where their exclusive economic zones overlap. Although China and South Korea have engaged in negotiations over the years, they've yet to come to an agreement on their boundaries in the Yellow Sea.

Taking advantage of the persisting disagreement on delimitation of maritime borders, China has employed gray zone tactics in the Yellow Sea to expand its territorial presence. And in the most recent dispute, China installed a new steel structure in the PMZ, causing a maritime standoff between Chinese and Korean coast guards.

To discuss recent developments in the Yellow Sea and China's broader gray zone tactics in the maritime realm, my guest today is Ray Pell, who's the director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project at Stanford University's Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.

Ray is also the co-host of the Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific podcast and a 35-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. Welcome to the China Global Podcast, Ray. Hi, Bonnie. It's a thrill to be with you. So let's begin with some context, Ray. What's the strategic significance of the Yellow Sea from both an economic and geopolitical perspective? And what's driving this dispute?

Well, so the Yellow Sea is, I mean, if you think about just where South Korea is in the universe, of course, they've got this border with North Korea that's been under dispute since the end of the Korean War. And they've got the northeastern part of China, which is an extremely populous, extremely important part of China. And that's right across the Yellow Sea. And of course, all of

South Korea's really large population centers, including its capital, are right on the Yellow Sea. And so, of course, most of its maritime traffic, commercial traffic, et cetera, go in through the Yellow Sea up into that area. So it's very important.

The roots of the conflict, I mean, I think you have to go back 25 years to when they made this agreement with, at the time, a China that was very much interested in stabilizing its near abroad. And it was entering the World Trade Organization. It was trying to become an economic powerhouse.

And so it made these agreements with its potential rivals to try to kind of keep things stable. And yet China's maritime ambitions really have never changed in all of that time. And so now China's capability and its capacity is growing to sort of meet its ambitions. So before this recent episode, what did China do to expand its control in the Yellow Sea? And how is

Korea responded to these actions? Mostly, Bonnie, it's been sort of a gradual process of, one, allowing its fishing vessels to go further and further towards South Korea. I mean, as we were talking right now, I was just looking at ship tracking information. There are Chinese fishing vessels within about 15 nautical miles of the South

western islands of South Korea. So that's right outside of its territorial sea. And so because they have all of those fishing vessels way beyond the provisional measure zone, China very aggressively patrols the Yellow Sea. And as you would look at it on a map, you would say, wow, those Chinese ships look like they're pretty close to South Korea. And they are.

So I'm trying to envision what these steel structures look like. What exactly are they? What's their purpose, or at least what does Beijing state that their purpose is? And how does the installation of these structures complicate the disputes that are ongoing between Seoul and Beijing?

Yeah. Your question, Bonnie was the question that came to my mind. The first time I read about these and the, and the dust up that was happening over them, what in the world is a steel structure and what does that mean? And it took a while to figure it out because they didn't, there was no information as to where they were. So finally we were able to sort of, you know, deduce it and then finally get a satellite shot. There's actually two different things happening there. There are the structures that are the aquaculture, uh,

Basically, they sink to the bottom of the sea and they breed salmon within a cage, essentially this large steel cage, huge amounts of salmon for then transporting back to China. And then besides that, they have installed this thing that essentially looks like a big oil rig, converted oil rig that is kind of like a mothership for these aquaculture cages. Wow.

Wow. Have you seen them construct something like this anywhere else, either in the neighborhood or further afield? I think this is pretty new, Bonnie. And if you even look at sort of their own...

messaging about it from China's perspective, all of it feels very new. This idea of deep sea aquaculture is a new initiative on their part. Of course, they have a very, very large populous country that likes to eat fish. And one of the problems they have is that the waters all around the coast of China have been severely overfished. So this is an answer to that question.

So you follow China's activities in the South China Sea more closely than anybody I know. And SeaLight, of course, has made a significant contribution to understanding maritime activities in real time. I'm not surprised you describe these Chinese rigs in the Yellow Sea as, and I'll quote here, an early step in bringing a South China Sea style gray zone campaign of salami slicing to the Yellow Sea.

So do some comparing for me, Ray. What were some of the early salami slicing measures China took in the South China Sea? And how do you see them in comparison to what they're doing now in the Yellow Sea?

Yeah, you know, Bonnie, I really see a lot of similarities. In the same way that they had about a 25-year-old agreement in the South China Sea with ASEAN called the Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, or the DOC, they have a similar almost 25-year-old agreement with South Korea about the provisional measures zone.

And so over a period of time, as we talk about this idea of slicing a salami, you know, if somebody came into your house and took a salami out of your refrigerator and left, you'd notice that was gone right away. But if they just took a little slice off of it, you might not mind as much. And that's sort of the same approach China takes to these maritime claims.

And so, you know, for example, in the early stages of China's activities in the South China Sea, there were these fishing huts that would appear on these really lonely reefs that were below water at high tide. And so they were just supposed to be there to support the fishermen.

But over time, they came up with this agreement and they said, OK, we're not going to build on any currently inhabited islands. And everybody with ASEAN agreed that they would abide by this. And so everybody sort of said, OK, that's the agreement.

But fishing huts constitute inhabitation. And so now we've seen many of these little places that start with these little fishing huts now have airfields and harbors and anti-ship missiles and all kinds of things on them. And it was sort of this ambiguity in the agreement that China was able to exploit so that later on it could do the other things that it's doing now.

We've seen it, and I know you track a lot of the maritime militia activity that's taking place in the South China Sea on a daily basis. Do we see this kind of activity in the Yellow Sea as well? So there's not a really active maritime militia that we've seen in the Yellow Sea yet. So, so far, that seems to be largely a South China Sea and maybe sort of inching up toward Taiwan, not so much up in the Yellow Sea as of this point.

What we are seeing, of course, as I mentioned before, is just sort of the

permission structure that these fishing vessels operate under, that they're kind of allowed to fish almost anywhere in the Yellow Sea that they want to under the watchful eye of the China Coast Guard. So you mentioned the existence of various agreements between China and ASEAN, and there's also this agreement between South Korea and China. It's a fisheries agreement that goes back to 2001.

Is there anything specific in that agreement

China is exploiting or is there something that South Korea can use to push back against China? Well, I think you really kind of hit the nail on the head when you use the word specific, Bonnie, because China enjoys the ambiguities, right? And so when you have kind of... So nobody in 2001 was envisioning these massive aquaculture projects. And so now

Now, in the in the agreement, it sets up what you would think that China would bring to the table at the Joint Fisheries Committee. This is something that was specifically set up to work on, you know, potentially controversial or or just things that needed coordination. And China bypassed that to put out these aquaculture cages.

And you have to think that that's by design, right? So, but because if you bring it to the Joint Fisheries Committee, then you sort of are saying to South Korea, we accept that this is under the jurisdiction of the Joint Fisheries Committee. And yet, if you are a maritime power that's trying to assert rights, then the way to sort of assert them is to say, we don't have to ask the Joint Fisheries Committee. This is covered under our current rights under the agreement.

I'm curious if you have any thoughts about the timing of this action. When did this start? Was it around January or is it more recent? I'm curious whether you see this as in some way a test of time.

the United States or whether you think it's just limited to China's relationship with South Korea. Obviously, there's been a bit of a political chaos, distraction going on in South Korea, but

They have now determined the date. I think it's June 3rd for their elections, but they've been very domestically focused. What's Beijing's intention here? Well, actually, that's one of the remarkable things about this, Bonnie, is because over a period of time, so we actually went back and kind of once we were able to locate these cages, we went back for years and we discovered that the cages have actually been there perhaps since as early as 2018.

Now, the rigs that the motherships, as I call them, didn't really show up until a couple of years later. And this most recent one didn't show up until about 2022. But that says it's been out there for a couple of years now. So this is not new. And it's curious, actually, in some ways, it's South Korea's recognition of this as a problem that's new. Huh. That's really interesting, especially since I'm surprised that South Korea is

is focusing on that at this particular juncture as they are having this political transition. You noted in an article, I think you recently published in the Eurasian Times, that South Korea is facing a policy dilemma as it attempts to navigate the pressures that are both domestic and international. So are these, are the pressures different? Are there responses different? And what's

How do you see Seoul's strategies in the LOC to deal with China shifting against the background of what is clearly increased threats and uncertainty in its security environment?

Sure. So, of course, you know, Seoul, they've just had this unfolding drama in which they've impeached and now removed their sitting president, who is considered hawkish on China and from the hawkish political party. And, of course, then his own political party is weakened going into this upcoming election. And so there are...

heavy international relations overtones kind of coming into this. So actually what's interesting is whether the effects of this dispute, what effects will that have on the electorate? Will they read this as a time to, okay, we should tamp down this dispute with China and will we gravitate toward the political party that

that is more dovish on this? Or will we go back and we will say, look, this clearly is not a problem that's going away in much the same sense in the Philippines, where you've seen kind of a hardening of the public support around President Marcos since the pushback against China began. And South Korea's public has been

less favorable toward Beijing, especially since the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system that was deployed several years ago.

But what about today? Is there a potential for a shift to a more positive attitude toward Beijing, especially against the background of a somewhat uncertain U.S. approach to South Korea? Well, you've seen Beijing make overtures, right? So they've had these summits with Japan and South Korea, where Beijing is casting itself now as sort of the responsible, stable power, whereas the United States has seen, or at least

Beijing would very much want the United States to be seen as this sort of reckless country that's sort of veering back and forth and throwing around tariffs and not tariffs and big tariffs and now small tariffs and sectoral tariffs. And so if Beijing is successful in this, then it may be that what South Korea looks for is a stabilization with China.

China so that they can at least have one part of their most important trading partner actually kind of hit a level of stability. So I think we're all watching to see if that happens. And of course, that happens against the backdrop of Beijing's more aggressive policy toward places further south, whether it be Taiwan or the Philippines.

I want to go back to the South China Sea for a minute because, you know, the Chinese have recently become a champion of environmental protection in the South China Sea after destroying a large portion, of course, of the coral reefs when it dredged sand to build islands there that, of course, are now today military outposts. And now they're claiming they're environmentally responsible. They're ushering in a new era in sustainable aquaculture,

Why is China suddenly focusing on these issues in disputed waters? Do you think this will resonate with any of the targets, South Korea, but of course some countries, China?

that have claims in the South China Sea as well in Southeast Asia. Is this now part of China's gray zone tactics? I certainly think so. Now, I mean, there is certainly lots to be said for the idea of having some kind of an aquaculture program that does reduce overfishing in some of these other areas. So it's not that

everything that happens in a gray zone campaign is bad. This actually may be a good development. It may be a good innovation. But as you know, China has been trying to stave off accusations. For example, at Scarborough Shoal, which they have had under their control in the South China Sea since 2012, there have been lots and lots of accusations that they have exploited

that time when they sort of have sole control over the shoal to do

rampant giant clam harvesting, which is extremely destructive. And they've responded to that by sort of, you've seen these things where they'll have a drone that'll overfly a Philippine fisherman and they'll catch them throwing a bottle into the water. I've even seen them sort of take fuzzed out pictures of fishermen urinating, which is bizarre. Of course, you've never heard of a fisherman urinating in the water, I'm sure. But these kinds of things that

somehow try to throw you off balance and say, oh, maybe everybody's doing it. Maybe it's all the same. So let's touch on the policy implications a bit. What do you think countries should be doing to counter these kind of actions that China's taking in the Yellow Sea? And what are the implications of

countries not coming out in support of South Korea, which worries me. Obviously, we see a growing pressure on the Philippines at this particular moment, where it seems like both the Chinese and the Philippines are staking some flags and asserting sovereignty claims over Sandy K. We could do a whole nother episode.

episode on that. But what do you see as, what are your suggestions as to what countries should do in response to what's going on in the Yellow Sea? Well, I think just to remind yourself of what the progress or the process was in the South China Sea of China's expansionism campaign throughout that last 25 years.

And remember that China is constantly evolving and constantly innovating in ways to sort of fuse their civil and their military arms together to be able to come up with new ways to press its claims. And so, I hate to say this because it sounds awful, but you might have to be a little paranoid. And I think that when

When South Korea is looking at this, they're looking at it correctly. There is a legitimate reason to do aquaculture, but we should be a little paranoid about China's intentions because we've seen this playbook before. Another thing I have been advocating for a while is that people should begin to study the Philippines transparency campaign. It doesn't mean everybody should adopt the exact same thing, but it's worth noting that this is actually one of the really few countries

innovative gray zone tactics we've seen from a government, you know, maybe rivaling the 2016 arbitral case that they brought or the victory that they won

in The Hague. If China is going to be innovative in how they make their assertions, maybe the countries should be studying one another to see what are the innovations in combating these assertions. Yeah, I completely agree with that. It's a great case study. And I think Taiwan has also learned some lessons from what the Philippines has done and could learn more. Finally, obviously, open source intelligence is really

played a crucial role in your research and analysis of China's maritime activities. So what did sea light track and decipher in what's going on today in China's activities in the Yellow Sea? And more broadly, talk about the role of open source intelligence in geopolitical reporting. Yeah, I really think we're going to see more and more, you know, let a hundred flowers bloom, as it were, in maritime open source intelligence or OSINT.

So, you know, as I mentioned at the top, we became very intrigued when we started reading news reports of steel structures. And as you said, what are they? What are we talking about here? And of course, at first, our dilemma was, it's just very hard to go grid by grid, you know, throughout the entire Yellow Sea, looking at commercial satellite imagery, trying to find something that might look like a steel structure that has no description, right? So, you know,

so eventually what we found was that there was a report on the actual research vessel, the, the Korean research vessel that went out to look at these structures on a particular date, the 27th of February. And that, that gave us what we needed because then we just had to track where that went. And of course we found that where it went also met with several China coast guard vessels. And then we said, okay, now we know where to look. And so once we were able to do that, we were able to find the structures and then task out. And we were really grateful to, uh, our, our satellite, uh,

imagery provider, Skyfi, for agreeing to... And by the way, it took a while because satellites don't necessarily take pictures over the water all the time. But eventually we were able to get a fantastic shot, which we were able to share not only with the media, but also to put out on our own website. I...

I enjoyed seeing all the pictures that have since emerged because now we've got the surface level pictures that were put out by members of the Korean parliament and those kinds of things. But we really it was kind of a really fun exercise. It was almost like a treasure hunt.

And, you know, not all of us speak Mandarin like you do, Bonnie. So, you know, I was stuck with old Google Translate trying to go back and forth and figure out what the names of these aquaculture cages were. And it was really fun, actually, as far as just finding out, you know, it was like this process of discovery. And it's one of those things that makes OSINT so much so enjoyable.

Well, we've been talking with Ray Powell, who is Director, Sea Light at Stanford University's Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation and the co-host of the podcast, Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific? I want to thank you, Ray, for all of the really terrific work that you're doing. And thanks for being on China Global. Thanks. And of course, we're going to have you on our podcast. And we thank you in advance for agreeing to it, even though you haven't already.

I look forward to it. Take care.