Sang Hun Seok
One of the notable achievements of South Korea President Lee Jae Myung’s state visit to Beijing in January 2026 was an understanding reached regarding Chinese maritime platforms in the Yellow Sea. Lee revealed that an understanding had been reached to relocate the Atlantic Amsterdam, a massive management platform located within the Provisional Measures Zone (PMZ), a maritime area jointly managed by China and South Korea pending future boundary delimitation under a 2001 agreement. Less than a month after the summit in Beijing, the platform was confirmed to have been relocated to Weihai, a major port in Shandong province.
This is obviously a diplomatic gesture meant to signal the continuing thaw between Seoul and Beijing. Yet, while the South Korean presidential office welcomed it as “meaningful progress,” the relocation may be less a conclusion than a recalibration of the current status quo. Playing devil’s advocate, we must consider the potential strategic calculations that might have influenced Beijing’s calculus.
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