BEIJING, Oct. 17 -- For ten days, one China Coast Guard vessel and one South Korean fisheries guidance ship worked the same stretch of the Yellow Sea, documenting fishing boats from both countries and carrying out boarding inspections. Xinhua says the previous joint patrol of its kind was in April 2022.

The coast guard said in a statement on Saturday that the pair covered more than 1,200 nautical miles over 210 hours between Oct. 8 and 17, according to Xinhua's account. The route lay inside the provisional measures zone under the China-ROK Fishery Agreement, an area where the two countries' exclusive economic zones overlap. It follows Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to Seoul in August.

The patrol's significance depends on detai...