More than a dozen buoys installed by China in and around the Provisional Measures Zone in the Yellow Sea, located between South Korea and mainland China, are apparently lighthouse-shaped structures standing up to 13 meters high and ten meters wide.

Photos released Tuesday by the office of People Power Party Rep. Eom Tae-young, a member of the National Assembly’s Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, showed 13 Chinese buoys of different sizes in and around the disputed waters, which were found and photographed by the South Korean Navy between February 2018 and May 2023.

Eleven of the buoys were 13 meters high and ten meters in diameter, while the other two were smaller, about five to six meters high and five to eight meters in diameter.

Most are labeled as ocean surveillance and measurement buoys and have serial numbers like “QF103,” in no particular order.
 
The three buoys discovered most recently on May 20, 2023, bear labels such as “Marine Observation Buoy of the People’s Republic of China,” “China Marine Monitoring Buoy QF222” and “Power Construction Corporation of China,” which is a Chinese state-owned company.
 
Ten buoys were located near the provisional waters between 123 and 124 degrees east longitude, within a maritime operational zone unilaterally declared by the Chinese military.

Amid growing concerns in South Korea that the buoys may be used for political purposes, including military reconnaissance, the Chinese government continues to claim they are purely for marine observation.