Ships Evading Coast Guard’s Perimeter

It has been revealed that the police and the navy guarding the maritime borders failed to detect ships from North Korea and China crossing the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the West Sea until they arrived at an island near the coast. This certainly shows that there are some serious defects in their maritime surveillance activities.

The National Maritime Police Agency reported on May 31 that Sun Tieping (38), captain of Liaotunga 558, a vessel in the 8-ton class, laid his ship at anchor on May 30 at 0:17 a.m. near the southeast part of Yeonpyeongdo, an island in Incheon, in front of a sushi restaurant identified as M, to ask a villager for help. One of his sailors, Chang Jingping (38), had been stabbed with a weapon.

Liaotunga was operating near the northern border of NLL. On the afternoon of May 29, the ship crossed the NLL and sailed for more than three hours south until it reached to Yeonpyeongdo without any interruption from the navy or the police.

The police and navy didn’t even know that a ship from China had arrived alongside the pier until a villager called 911 and asked for help for the Chinese sailor.

It is surprising to know that two formations of naval vessels equipped with highly efficient radars and three coast guard ships operating near the NLL were not able to detect the Chinese ship.

On May 25 around 1:00 p.m., a North Korean identified as “A” (42) approached Wool-do, an island near Ongjin-gun, with his 39-year-old wife and two sons on a wooden boat in order to defect to South Korea.

This North Korean family was not restrained during their journey across the NLL and to the island. They were sent to the authority concerned by the police who belatedly arrived at the scene on a villager’s call.

The fact that it only takes an hour by sea to reach Wooldo, which is about 70km southwest of the Incheon Port, is quite worrisome.

A maritime police officer said, “We didn’t receive any report from the navy that a ship crossed the NLL. Also, the ship from China arrived here by using the sea route under the navy’s authority. Therefore, there was no way for us to deal with this situation.”

Meanwhile, a navy official reported, “The radar detected a Chinese ship, but it disappeared while we tried to find out its exact location. Also, searching it was almost impossible because of the thick fog and bad weather.”

Kum-Chun Hwang kchwang@donga.com