Multiple organizations are calling for the government to correct what is wrong in its fisheries agreement with China. “According to the agreement, the same rules are applied as to vessel count, catch, and so on in the EEZ on the other side, but China’s catch has exceeded 10 times South Korea’s due to different fisheries regulations,” they said.
In the period of 2017 to 2021, 5,925 Chinese fishing vessels caught 198,904 tons in South Korea’s EEZ while 900 South Korean fishing vessels caught 14,874 tons in China’s EEZ. The maximum figures both governments set for that period are 7,240 vessels and 286,750 tons.
The wide gaps between the figures of the two countries are because of their different conditions. In China’s EEZ, a large number of Chinese fishing vessels are already competing intensely with the amount of fish that can be caught relatively small, which means it is not that attractive to South Korean fishermen. By contrast, South Korea’s EEZ is subject to more regulations related to period, place, and amount and thus richer in resources, which means Chinese vessels have no reason not to enter it.
The number of illegal Chinese fishing vessels in the West Sea NLL area amounted to 11,858 in 2018 and further soared to 24,948 in 2021. The South Korean government collected an illegal fishing fine of 204.5 billion won from China in 2008 to 2021, but the money has never gone to fishermen.