South Korea and China are set to hold a working-level maritime meeting in Seoul amid tensions over a set of steel structures Beijing has installed in the Yellow Sea.

The two sides will hold the third meeting of the South Korea-China Dialogue on Maritime Cooperation on Wednesday in Seoul.

The Seoul government reportedly plans to raise an issue with the steel structures China installed without due notice in an area of the Yellow Sea where the two countries’ exclusive economic zones overlap. 

In 2018 and 2024 China installed two semisubmersible buoys in the overlapping area, called the Provisional Maritime Zone. 

China also built a fixed steel structure there in 2022, believed to be a repurposed decommissioned oil rig.

The provisional zone was established under a 2000 bilateral agreement to avoid direct conflict, permitting only fishing and navigation there until a formal maritime boundary is agreed upon.