Talks underway over China's structures in West Sea: Wi

A screen grab of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' report on China's structures in West Sea

President Lee Jae Myung's national security aide said Seoul and Beijing are coordinating on West Sea structures that China unilaterally deployed, with Lee seeking a peaceful solution.

"Unlike the South and East China Seas, peace and prosperity should prevail in the West Sea," Wi Sung-lac, director of the presidential National Security Office, said in an interview with local newspaper Hankook Ilbo released Friday.

Wi's remarks came in response to analyses that China's deployment of what it claims are "civilian" steel structures in the West Sea could mirror its tactics that led to its militarization of the South and East China seas in territorial disputes with neighboring countries.

A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, indicated Tuesday that China has unilaterally deployed 13 observation buoys, a maintenance facility and two aquaculture cages in the West Sea in violation of the fisheries agreement. The 2001 agreement between Seoul and Beijing was designed to establish a jointly managed maritime area called the Provisional Measures Zone to address disputes over the two countries' overlapping exclusive economic zone claims.

Concerning such analyses, Wi said, "Coordination is underway over the matter between South Korea and China," adding that maritime boundary delimitation in the West Sea will be a key topic to be discussed in the coordination.

Wi also said the coordination would lay the foundation for the notion that the West Sea "should not be a closed sea affected by either confrontation or competition, but an open sea of peace and co-prosperity."

South Korea and China held a summit in November for the first time since Lee’s inauguration in June, as Chinese President Xi Jinping visited South Korea on the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conferences in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province.

Meanwhile, downplaying the chances of scaling down the joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States to leverage peace on the Korean Peninsula, Wi said maintaining joint drills would be a prerequisite for South Korea to regain wartime operational control from the US.

"We need to take steps to examine our preparedness before the transfer of wartime operational control, and we will be able to do so through the South Korea-US joint drills," Wi said.

President Lee said during his four-nation trip in November that it would be "advisable not to hold military drills" once South Korea and the US agree that a peace regime is firmly established.

Wi said such a situation is a tall order, as South Korea cannot singlehandedly propose the adjustment while North Korea is not responsive to South Korea's offer for dialogue.