China And South Korea In Late Qing Dynasty Fishery Disputes

China and the Korean Peninsula are interlinked by both land and sea. Because ofthis geographic reason, people at the coastal part of the two areas mainly make aliving on fishing. Since the ancient times, people living at the coastal parts ofShandong and Liaoning Province in China used to fish and hunt on the KoreanPeninsula. However, this changed when it came to the modern times, especially afterJapan and the South Korea signed the Fishery Agreement, which started to make rulesfor their mutual fishing activities. Being impacted by the Fishery Agreement betweenJapan and the South Korea, the fishery exchanges between China and the North Koreawere paid attention to by both governments, which started to negotiate with each otherto pursue their own benefits in this field. Since the negotiations on fishery went on aspretty much the same with the development of diplomatic relations between the lateQing Dynasty and the North Korea, the writer believes the research on the fisheryexchanges will provide a very good angle of view for a better understanding of thediplomatic relations between the two sides. It is known that fishery conflicts occurredif both sides didn’t negotiate with each other and made their respective fishing areaand fishing rules clear. Therefore, the main focus of the fishery conflicts betweenChina and the Korean Peninsula was whether the government of Qing Dynasty waswilling to sign the Fishery Agreement with the governments of the North and SouthKorea or not. During1882to1894, Mr. Yuan Shikai was in charge of the diplomaticaffairs with the North Korea, and he strongly opposed signing the Agreement becauseof the lessons learned from the signing between Japan and the North Korea. However,during1899to1905, after China and the South Korea established diplomatic tiesbased on mutual equality, it became increasingly necessary and urgent to sign theAgreement and several diplomatic ministers of the South Korea started to call for the signing as soon as possible. During1906to1910, Mr. Ma Tinglinag, the ChineseConsulate General to the South Korea, advocated to sign the Fishery Agreementbetween China and the South Korea at an early stage because of the increasinglysevere fishery conflicts between the two countries. But some provinces in China suchas Shandong Province firmly opposed to do so and called for a delay, because theybelieved fishery conflicts would occur and Chinese marine sovereignty would lose ifthe Agreement was signed. After several decades of negotiations, the FisheryAgreement between China and the North Korea was not signed eventually. As wecould see from the above, all the previous negotiations went on like the developmentof the diplomatic ties between China and the Korean Peninsula, which had beentransformed into the diplomatic system in modern times from the traditionalsuzerain_vassal relationship. However, this diplomatic relationship had experiencedconstant ups and downs, not only because of the influence of the traditionalsuzerain_vassal relationship between the two sides, but also because of thecomplicated regional situation in North-East Asia, especially being impacted by theincreasing aggression from Japan, which brought severe barriers to the normaldevelopment of the diplomatic relations between both sides.