Northeast Asian Regional Economic Security: Fishery Cooperation between Russia and South Korea

Abstract

This article reviews fishery cooperation between Russia and South Korea from a regional security perspective. Even though the South Korean fishery industry has long played a role in agriculture as a national food industry, the Korean inshore fishery production amount has been steadily decreasing, primarily because of the new Korea-Japan fishery and the Korea-China fishery agreement in the last decade. In this regard, the Russian Far East provides a solution to South Korean fish markets because of its vast and rich marine products and fishery resources. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1990 and a fishery agreement in 1991, South Korea has fished in the Russian waters according to fishery quotas based on a mutual fishery pact. This relatively small but flourishing fishery trade is one of the few bright spots in the currently relatively stagnant Russo-South Korean diplomatic relations.