South Korea Sends Military Vessels to Repel Chinese Boats

Amid growing anger and diplomatic protests over Chinese boats illegally fishing near the tense sea border, the South Korean Navy and Coast Guard kicked off an operation on Friday to drive them away. The fishing boats were found catching crabs in the southern area of the sea boundary with North Korea.

Brooks, a United States army general, is the current commander of U.S. Forces Korea. The numbers show a particular spike in illegal Chinese fishing since 2010, when inter-Korean relations first started heading downhill under the Lee Myung-bak presidency (2008-13). Some 28,500 American servicemembers are stationed in South Korea. “We had a responsibility to act and we are doing that”.

During the raid, 14 Korean Coast Guard officers boarded the Chinese fishing vessel to seize it.

Washington and Seoul also need China’s help in efforts to rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Officials said the operation, executed by maritime civil police and representatives of the U.N. Command military armistice commission, will continue as long as necessary.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff says its two-day crackdown is aimed at repelling Chinese vessels taking stocks out of neutral waters, as declared by the 1953 armistice agreement. They turned the crew and boats over to the coast guard, local media reported.

South Korea’s navy and coast guard joined with the UN Command to patrol the approximately 60 km (40 mile) stretch of waters in the Han River estuary that runs between the coasts of the rival Koreas, a Defense Ministry official told Reuters.

According to China’s Foreign Ministry, Beijing has taken pains to education of fishermen about respecting worldwide agreements.

The main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea also issued a statement in which it welcomed the latest crackdown operation but urged the government to intensify its efforts to “protect the right to life of our fishermen in the Yellow Sea”.

Another government official said, “South Korea determined that a more effective crackdown and control is needed in the area at a time when illegal Chinese boats could drain marine resources in the estuary of the Han River and lead to possible military clashes between South and North Korea”.

The fishermen are drawn to an area that is a rich source of blue crabs in the spring, and they have begun numbering in the hundreds in the first five months of 2016, a South Korean ministry official said.

Seoul has called for Beijing to employ tougher measures against Chinese boats illegally fishing in South Korea-controlled waters, which has caused bad feelings between the neighbours in recent years.

Cho Chul-hui, a guide on the island, said the Chinese boats often use a common net to dredge all the fish in their path, a practice known as bull trawling.