By Yi Whan-woo
China has accepted South Korea’s demand to punish the Chinese fishermen who are responsible for sinking a Coast Guard patrol boat cracking down on illegal fishing in the West Sea, sources said Thursday.
After the incident, Beijing urged Seoul to be “calm and rational” in dealing with the illegal operation of the Chinese trawlers in South Korean territorial waters. It also denounced Seoul’s plan to use force actively in future crackdowns as “legally unconvincing.”
However, China is apparently changing its stance.
Analysts said Thursday that China has decided to placate South Korea to avoid any diplomatic conflicts following their dispute over the planned deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in North Gyeongsang Province next year.
Kong Xuanyou, China’s assistant minister of foreign affairs, held talks with Kim Hyoung-zhin, the deputy minister for political affairs at the South Korean foreign ministry, Wednesday.
Xuanyou, who is on a three-day visit to Seoul until Friday, promised to “deal accordingly under Chinese law” concerning the crew whose fishing vessel rammed the Coast Guard’s speed boat and sank it in the waters southwest of Socheong Island on Oct. 7.
Xuanyou also said the crews are under investigation.
The Seoul government said Xuanyou expressed regret over the Oct. 7 incident and that the Chinese government “will not avoid taking responsibility.”
The Chinese government previously held South Korea responsible for the sinking, saying that it took place in the Exclusive Fisheries Zone, where both countries are allowed to fish in line with a bilateral fishing agreement.
“I speculate Chinese President Xi Jinping or other top-ranked officials are behind Beijing’s sudden shift from its hard-line stance to placatory gesture toward Seoul,” said Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong University. “The Chinese leaders may have thought that this incident could fray bilateral relations despite their need to continue dialogues over THAAD, North Korea’s nuclear programs and other pending geopolitical issues.”
Park assessed China’s gesture as “the best it could offer,” pointing out that Xuanyou is the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit South Korea since Seoul and Washington jointly announced a plan to deploy a THAAD battery here in July.
Xuanyou met Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam, Thursday. He assessed that his visit so far has been “very good” and that he discussed “every bilateral issue” with South Korean officials.
The issues discussed included ways to bolster dialogue channels on fishing partnerships in the West Sea.
“China has so many conflicting issues concerning the region, and it seems the country is trying to ensure that the illegal operation of the Chinese fishing boats does not get in its way,” a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA) said, asking not to be named.
The experts, however, speculated that the Chinese government will still not be able to prevent its fishing boats from trespassing into South Korean territorial waters.
“Like I said, China has many issues that it should take care of and illegal fishing is not on its diplomatic priority list,” the KNDA professor said. “In that sense, Xuanyou’s visit should be seen as efforts to prevent any further diplomatic conflict with Seoul, not rooting out such operations ultimately.”