BEIJING — For ten days, one China Coast Guard vessel and one South Korean fisheries guidance ship worked the same stretch of the Yellow Sea, documenting fishing boats from both countries and carrying out boarding inspections. Xinhua says the previous joint patrol of its kind was in April 2022.
The coast guard said in a statement on Saturday that the pair covered more than 1,200 nautical miles over 210 hours between Oct. 8 and 17, according to Xinhua’s account. The route lay inside the provisional measures zone under the China-ROK Fishery Agreement, an area where the two countries’ exclusive economic zones overlap. It follows Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Seoul in August.
The patrol’s significance depends on details the statement does not supply. Xinhua, relaying the coast guard’s statement, gives no count of boats boarded, warnings issued or vessels detained, and it does not say whose fishing boats were inspected. A South Korean government account of the patrol is not among the sources this report could cite, so every figure above comes from Beijing’s side alone.
The coast guard presents the patrol as a success. Xinhua reported that, according to the statement, the exercise “further strengthened exchanges and cooperation” between the two countries’ maritime law enforcement agencies. Xinhua added that it is expected to help “combat illegal fishing” and conserve marine fishery resources.
The zone has also been a source of friction. In April 2025 the South Korean government expressed “concern” and demanded action over what Korea.net, the official website of the Republic of Korea, described as China’s unauthorized installation of structures there. Beijing calls them “deep-sea fisheries aquaculture facilities,” Korea.net said, listing the fish farms Shenlan 1, installed in 2018, and Shenlan No. 2, installed in 2024, along with a 2022 structure resembling an oil drilling rig that China calls a control facility. Then Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul told the National Assembly that the government would consider “effective alternatives like proportional countermeasures.” Nothing in Xinhua’s account of this week’s patrol mentions the structures.
In June, Xinhua reported that Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said “China and ROK have a mature mechanism of dialogue on fishery issues.” Its dispatch did not say what prompted the remark. The coast guard says it will keep strengthening exchanges and practical cooperation with its South Korean counterpart. Xinhua’s account does not say when the next joint patrol will take place, or whether the structures are on the agenda.
