China’s Fishing Fleet, the World’s Largest, Drives Beijing’s Global Ambitions
By Chuin-Wei Yap, 4/21/21, Wall St. Journal

In Beijing’s push to become a maritime superpower, China’s
fishing fleet has grown to become the world’s largest by
far—and it has turned more aggressive, provoking tensions
around the globe.

The fleet brings in millions of tons of seafood a year to
feed the country’s booming middle class. Foreign govts,
fishermen & conservation groups have accused the fleet of
illegal fishing, including by using banned equipment &
venturing into other countries’ territory. That fishing has
upended local economies & threatens ecosystems including
around the Galápagos Islands, affected govts & fishermen say.

The Chinese fleet is helping the country stake out a bigger
presence at sea, including by building a world-wide network
of ports. The vessels, rigged with winches & booms & pulling
giant nets, can be twice as large as a naval patrol boat,
at an avg of almost 200 ft long. Fishing crews have helped
establish island settlements in waters subject to
territorial disputes with neighbors.

An analysis of transponder & global vessel registration
data indicates Chinese boats involved in distant-water ops—
meaning outside a country’s own territorial waters—total as
many as 17,000, acc. to London-based researcher Overseas
Development Inst. Official data & analyst estimates indicate
China’s closest competitors in the industry, Taiwan &
South Korea, have some 2,500 such vessels combined.

China’s foreign ministry said that legally registered
vessels were far lower, at 2,701 as of 2019. China agreed
to cap its fishing vessels at 3,000 in 2017, in response to
World Trade Org efforts to cut govt subsidies that
contribute to overfishing.

The ministry said that Beijing implements the world’s
strictest oversight on distant-water fishing. It has
toughened legal penalties on errant fishing in recent years.

Ecuador & Peru placed their navies on alert last year to
track hundreds of Chinese trawlers massing near S American
fisheries. In Asia, govts & the fishing industry have
complained of hundreds of Chinese incursions in their
domestic waters. Indonesia has taken to periodically
detonating seized Chinese trawlers in hopes it will deter
other Chinese boats from poaching in its waters.

From 2010-19, Chinese-flagged or owned vessels accounted
for 21% of global fishing offenses logged by Spyglass, a
Vancouver-based fishing crime database, up from 16% the
previous decade. A 2019 global ranking by Geneva-based
Global Initiative, a transnational crime watchdog, placed
China first in the prevalence of illegal fishing by nations.

In the West African nation of Ghana, fishermen say that
dozens of Chinese trawlers, equipped to fish at all depths,
are venturing daily from their deep-sea license remits into
Ghana’s sovereign waters, targeting shallow-dwelling fish
that used to be a local preserve.

“Because the trawlers have depleted our fish stocks at a
very fast rate, we all owe debts, & it has made our life
extremely difficult,” said Kojo Panyin, a 53-year-old
fisherman in Axim, a Ghanaian fishing village. Such fishing
also destroys the nets of local fisherman, he said.

China’s foreign ministry said it requires its fishers
abroad to comply with local laws.

For China, the industry feeds a rapidly growing middle
class and creates tens of millions of jobs in fishing,
aquaculture and seafood processing. It also reflects China’s
growing assertiveness. Distant-water fishing is enshrined
in Xi Jinping’s national development blueprint and is a
key part of his Belt and Road global infrastructure plan,
which includes ocean routes.

“The industry is important for ensuring national food
security,” the blueprint says. “It is of great significance
in safeguarding national maritime rights and interests.”

Mr. Xi’s plan called for the world-wide development of
29 distant-water fishing bases, which help to project
Beijing’s vision of itself at the center of a web of
global infrastructure.

In West Africa, Fuzhou Hongdong Pelagic Fishery Co. is
using $60 million in state funds to expand a fishing port
in Mauritania, China’s largest distant-water base, state
media reports say. China has no naval base in the region.

Chinese companies also are building a fishing port in
Pakistan, near a major oil route & where Beijing jockeys
for geopolitical influence.

First fleet

China’s first distant-water fleet, launched in March '85,
comprised 13 fishing boats cobbled together from ships &
personnel lent by freight companies, state records show.
Beijing hoped that the state-owned flotilla, financed
with a few hundred thousand U.S. dollars, acc. to records,
would spur China’s engagement with the global economy.

In its first full year of operation, the fleet harvested
some 20,000 metric tons of seafood, official data show.
At first, the country sold almost all of its distant-water
catch abroad. Now the fleet sends 2/3 of its harvest home
to China, acc. to state data.

Since 2015, China’s distant-water catch has averaged
two million tons a year, acc. to state data, which analysts
say could undercount the actual total.

The nation now is the world’s largest seafood consumer &
in 2019 was the 3rd-largest seafood importer, after Europe
& the U.S. Seafood imports to China totaled $15 billion in
2019, double the figure from 4 years earlier. Ecuador, the
world’s largest shrimp exporter, sells twice the volume of
shrimp to China as it does to the US/France/Spain combined.

While 3/4 of the fishing fleet is now privately owned, the
Chinese state maintains a large presence in the industry.
The nation’s largest distant-water firms, China National
Fisheries Corp., a unit of an agricultural conglomerate
directly managed by the central govt, & its subsidiaries,
remain state-owned.

Closely held operators keep close ties with the govt, rely
on state subsidies & often have state investors. The
chairman of Fuzhou Hongdong, which is building the port
in Mauritania, is a delegate to China’s legislature. The
companies didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The industry helps China act on territorial claims, such
as by sending fishermen to set up settlements on previously
unoccupied atolls in the South China Sea. In turn, the
state regularly defends fishing interests.

The Chinese navy, coast guard & paramilitary often join
hundreds of fishermen in motorboats in regional seas where
China has built artificial islands with military-capable
facilities, including air strips, jet fighter hangars &
naval bases.

Vietnamese officials say a Chinese coast guard ship sank
a Vietnamese fishing boat in April near the Paracel I's,
which both nations claim. Beijing said the Vietnamese
vessel collided with the Chinese.

The incident followed Chinese altercations with fishing
vessels from other South China Sea claimants such as
the Philippines and Indonesia over the years.

‘Rule-breaking’

Maritime law allows coastal states varying levels of
control over seas up to 200 nautical miles from their
shoreline. Most states seek to restrict foreign operations
in their territorial waters, including fishing.

In October, Malaysia’s maritime authorities detained six
Chinese fishing vessels, accusing them of trespassing
in its waters.

In Aug, some 300 Chinese trawlers fished near Ecuador’s
Galápagos I's. Ecuador said it was the largest gathering
of such Chinese vessels, & accused them of using illegal
means to evade being identified, such as turning off
tracking systems & altering their names.

Ecuadorean officials said Chinese fishing threatened the
biodiversity of the Galápagos, where some animals depend
on the squid that the Chinese vessels were netting.
China’s foreign ministry has said Beijing would halt the
fleet’s fishing there from Sept-Nov.

“Over the past 5 years, there has been a giant transfor-
mational shift with the Chinese distant-water fleet,”
said Steve Trent, co-founder of London-based conservation
group Enviro Justice Foundation. “They are devastating
the small [open water] fisheries, the fish that coastal
communities depend on for their livelihoods.”

Ghana reserves an area six nautical miles from shore for
local fisheries. Chinese trawlers increasingly ignore
these poorly policed rules, fishermen & conservation
groups say.

The modern Chinese industrial trawler can fish 700 tons
a day, a volume that would take the largest African
fishing canoe 6 months to harvest, industry data show.
Residents of Axim, which largely relies on fishing for
income, now have to drive to another town 80 miles east
to buy the catch from the Chinese, said Mr. Panyin,
the fisherman.

Ghana’s marine police in June detained the Chinese-owned
trawler Lurongyuanyu 956, accusing its operators of using
illegally-sized nets. “You see this vessel thru global
fishing logs, going back & forth from coastal waters to
Ghana,” said Dyhia Belhabib, Spyglass’ developer & principal

On Tuesday, April 27, 2021 at 4:15:14 PM UTC-4, David P. wrote:
> China’s Fishing Fleet, the World’s Largest, Drives Beijing’s Global Ambitions
> By Chuin-Wei Yap, 4/21/21, Wall St. Journal
>
> In Beijing’s push to become a maritime superpower, China’s
> fishing fleet has grown to become the world’s largest by
> far—and it has turned more aggressive, provoking tensions
> around the globe.
>
> The fleet brings in millions of tons of seafood a year to
> feed the country’s booming middle class. Foreign govts,
> fishermen & conservation groups have accused the fleet of
> illegal fishing, including by using banned equipment &
> venturing into other countries’ territory. That fishing has
> upended local economies & threatens ecosystems including
> around the Galápagos Islands, affected govts & fishermen say.
>
> The Chinese fleet is helping the country stake out a bigger
> presence at sea, including by building a world-wide network
> of ports. The vessels, rigged with winches & booms & pulling
> giant nets, can be twice as large as a naval patrol boat,
> at an avg of almost 200 ft long. Fishing crews have helped
> establish island settlements in waters subject to
> territorial disputes with neighbors.
>
> An analysis of transponder & global vessel registration
> data indicates Chinese boats involved in distant-water ops—
> meaning outside a country’s own territorial waters—total as
> many as 17,000, acc. to London-based researcher Overseas
> Development Inst. Official data & analyst estimates indicate
> China’s closest competitors in the industry, Taiwan &
> South Korea, have some 2,500 such vessels combined.
>
> China’s foreign ministry said that legally registered
> vessels were far lower, at 2,701 as of 2019. China agreed
> to cap its fishing vessels at 3,000 in 2017, in response to
> World Trade Org efforts to cut govt subsidies that
> contribute to overfishing.
>
> The ministry said that Beijing implements the world’s
> strictest oversight on distant-water fishing. It has
> toughened legal penalties on errant fishing in recent years.
>
> Ecuador & Peru placed their navies on alert last year to
> track hundreds of Chinese trawlers massing near S American
> fisheries. In Asia, govts & the fishing industry have
> complained of hundreds of Chinese incursions in their
> domestic waters. Indonesia has taken to periodically
> detonating seized Chinese trawlers in hopes it will deter
> other Chinese boats from poaching in its waters.
>
> From 2010-19, Chinese-flagged or owned vessels accounted
> for 21% of global fishing offenses logged by Spyglass, a
> Vancouver-based fishing crime database, up from 16% the
> previous decade. A 2019 global ranking by Geneva-based
> Global Initiative, a transnational crime watchdog, placed
> China first in the prevalence of illegal fishing by nations.
>
> In the West African nation of Ghana, fishermen say that
> dozens of Chinese trawlers, equipped to fish at all depths,
> are venturing daily from their deep-sea license remits into
> Ghana’s sovereign waters, targeting shallow-dwelling fish
> that used to be a local preserve.
>
> “Because the trawlers have depleted our fish stocks at a
> very fast rate, we all owe debts, & it has made our life
> extremely difficult,” said Kojo Panyin, a 53-year-old
> fisherman in Axim, a Ghanaian fishing village. Such fishing
> also destroys the nets of local fisherman, he said.
>
> China’s foreign ministry said it requires its fishers
> abroad to comply with local laws.
>
> For China, the industry feeds a rapidly growing middle
> class and creates tens of millions of jobs in fishing,
> aquaculture and seafood processing. It also reflects China’s
> growing assertiveness. Distant-water fishing is enshrined
> in Xi Jinping’s national development blueprint and is a
> key part of his Belt and Road global infrastructure plan,
> which includes ocean routes.
>
> “The industry is important for ensuring national food
> security,” the blueprint says. “It is of great significance
> in safeguarding national maritime rights and interests.”
>
> Mr. Xi’s plan called for the world-wide development of
> 29 distant-water fishing bases, which help to project
> Beijing’s vision of itself at the center of a web of
> global infrastructure.
>
> In West Africa, Fuzhou Hongdong Pelagic Fishery Co. is
> using $60 million in state funds to expand a fishing port
> in Mauritania, China’s largest distant-water base, state
> media reports say. China has no naval base in the region.
>
> Chinese companies also are building a fishing port in
> Pakistan, near a major oil route & where Beijing jockeys
> for geopolitical influence.
>
> First fleet
>
> China’s first distant-water fleet, launched in March '85,
> comprised 13 fishing boats cobbled together from ships &
> personnel lent by freight companies, state records show.
> Beijing hoped that the state-owned flotilla, financed
> with a few hundred thousand U.S. dollars, acc. to records,
> would spur China’s engagement with the global economy.
>
> In its first full year of operation, the fleet harvested
> some 20,000 metric tons of seafood, official data show.
> At first, the country sold almost all of its distant-water
> catch abroad. Now the fleet sends 2/3 of its harvest home
> to China, acc. to state data.
>
> Since 2015, China’s distant-water catch has averaged
> two million tons a year, acc. to state data, which analysts
> say could undercount the actual total.
>
> The nation now is the world’s largest seafood consumer &
> in 2019 was the 3rd-largest seafood importer, after Europe
> & the U.S. Seafood imports to China totaled $15 billion in
> 2019, double the figure from 4 years earlier. Ecuador, the
> world’s largest shrimp exporter, sells twice the volume of
> shrimp to China as it does to the US/France/Spain combined.
>
> While 3/4 of the fishing fleet is now privately owned, the
> Chinese state maintains a large presence in the industry.
> The nation’s largest distant-water firms, China National
> Fisheries Corp., a unit of an agricultural conglomerate
> directly managed by the central govt, & its subsidiaries,
> remain state-owned.
>
> Closely held operators keep close ties with the govt, rely
> on state subsidies & often have state investors. The
> chairman of Fuzhou Hongdong, which is building the port
> in Mauritania, is a delegate to China’s legislature. The
> companies didn’t respond to requests for comment.
>
> The industry helps China act on territorial claims, such
> as by sending fishermen to set up settlements on previously
> unoccupied atolls in the South China Sea. In turn, the
> state regularly defends fishing interests.
>
> The Chinese navy, coast guard & paramilitary often join
> hundreds of fishermen in motorboats in regional seas where
> China has built artificial islands with military-capable
> facilities, including air strips, jet fighter hangars &
> naval bases.
>
> Vietnamese officials say a Chinese coast guard ship sank
> a Vietnamese fishing boat in April near the Paracel I's,
> which both nations claim. Beijing said the Vietnamese
> vessel collided with the Chinese.
>
> The incident followed Chinese altercations with fishing
> vessels from other South China Sea claimants such as
> the Philippines and Indonesia over the years.
>
> ‘Rule-breaking’
>
> Maritime law allows coastal states varying levels of
> control over seas up to 200 nautical miles from their
> shoreline. Most states seek to restrict foreign operations
> in their territorial waters, including fishing.
>
> In October, Malaysia’s maritime authorities detained six
> Chinese fishing vessels, accusing them of trespassing
> in its waters.
>
> In Aug, some 300 Chinese trawlers fished near Ecuador’s
> Galápagos I's. Ecuador said it was the largest gathering
> of such Chinese vessels, & accused them of using illegal
> means to evade being identified, such as turning off
> tracking systems & altering their names.
>
> Ecuadorean officials said Chinese fishing threatened the
> biodiversity of the Galápagos, where some animals depend
> on the squid that the Chinese vessels were netting.
> China’s foreign ministry has said Beijing would halt the
> fleet’s fishing there from Sept-Nov.
>
> “Over the past 5 years, there has been a giant transfor-
> mational shift with the Chinese distant-water fleet,”
> said Steve Trent, co-founder of London-based conservation
> group Enviro Justice Foundation. “They are devastating
> the small [open water] fisheries, the fish that coastal
> communities depend on for their livelihoods.”
>
> Ghana reserves an area six nautical miles from shore for
> local fisheries. Chinese trawlers increasingly ignore
> these poorly policed rules, fishermen & conservation
> groups say.
>
> The modern Chinese industrial trawler can fish 700 tons
> a day, a volume that would take the largest African
> fishing canoe 6 months to harvest, industry data show.
> Residents of Axim, which largely relies on fishing for
> income, now have to drive to another town 80 miles east
> to buy the catch from the Chinese, said Mr. Panyin,
> the fisherman.
>
> Ghana’s marine police in June detained the Chinese-owned
> trawler Lurongyuanyu 956, accusing its operators of using
> illegally-sized nets. “You see this vessel thru global
> fishing logs, going back & forth from coastal waters to
> Ghana,” said Dyhia Belhabib, Spyglass’ developer & principal
>
> investigator for conservation group Ecotrust Canada.
>
> China’s foreign ministry said it had taken note of the
> allegations. State records show the vessel is owned by
> eastern China-based Rongcheng Marine Fishery Co. Staff
> there declined to make anyone available for comment.
>
> Fishing communities often are overshadowed by larger
> priorities in bilateral trade. Ghana’s fishing output
> last year of around $480 million is a fraction of its
> $7.3 billion annual trade with China, which includes oil
> & metals. Beijing funds big Ghanaian projects from dams
> to theaters.
>
> In neighboring Sierra Leone, where China has invested
> billions of dollars to develop mining & highways, local
> authorities say that illegal Chinese fishing drains $29
> million annually in state revenue—but that they are ill-
> equipped to police it. In Aug, Sierra Leone’s fisheries
> ministry said it had lost track of 3 Chinese-owned
> trawlers that fled after being charged by police a month
> earlier with illegally fishing within Sierra Leone’s
> territorial waters.
>
> Even on the high seas, which are relatively free from the
> scrutiny of sovereign authorities, Chinese trawlers have
> come under investigation.
>
> In May, Indonesian authorities began probing a Chinese
> tuna trawler where 4 Indonesian fishermen died while on
> the South Pacific Ocean. Beijing said it was looking into
> the case. Indonesian fishermen working aboard say that
> they were made to harvest shark fins, a popular delicacy
> in China, in breach of regionally-agreed rules on
> fishery management.
>
> “From Oct, we stopped catching tuna,” said fisherman
> Rizky Alvian. “Every day, we catch shark. Just shark.”
>
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-fishing-fleet-the-worlds-largest-drives-beijings-global-ambitions-11619015507

China is doing the hard work, fishing for the world, and yet US cast bad
vibes again at China.

American fishermen had declined. They cannot take the hot sun. They like to
connect to internet. They are not interested in spending months at sea.

They rather join the US navy, as it will shelter them from sun and rain.
They have good foods, five times a day. The chefs in the ship cafeterias
churned out a variety of foods for them.

Therefore, American fishermen are now lazy. They found that the American
labour cost increases their operating fishing cost. Henceforth, their
American fish cost are very high.

But Americans love high pay per hour, and yet want cheap foods and cheap
gasoline. This is so that their high pay can spend on other things like
buying houses, travels, and drinking cost .

In short, their American fishing costs for their fishes are too expensive
for Americans to bear. They find that imported fishes from China and other
countries are cheap at a fraction of their own costs.

So they want cheap fishes and sea foods, and hence prefer other cheaper
fishermen from other countries, who can risk their deep sea lives for them,
to fish and export to them.

Hence, China fishermen were their first choice as China has large numbers of
fishing boats, and can on their behalf, at the risk of lives in rough
waters, to fish and sell to them at a fraction of price.

As China needs find manufacturing usage, it adds to the value of fish
product manufacturing. They processed fishes into a variety of higher ranges
of fish products are even happier for the Americans in the US.

Americans saw that their American cost of processing fishes into high range
of fish products in their factories were even more costly than just fishes
alone.

So they rather buy processed fish products from other countries. Other
countries, like China and elsewhere, have cheap labour costs, were hence
able to sell to them cheaply.

American had been enjoying cheap sea fishes and fish processed products, and
yet they never thank the people in China and other countries for their hard
breaking work for their chepa foods.

In the past many years, China exports 100% of all its deep fishing catch to
the world. They now over the years, exports 2/3 of its total fishing catch
to countries. They need 1/3 for their own processed fish products for their
consumptions, too.

Needless to say, the American writer is now talked cock by writing stupid
about China fishing fleet.

In case he does not know about economics, he should go to school to learn
that the economic size of the fishing fleet is important decision to the
eventual cost of fishing and ultimate price of the fishes sold to US and the
word.

Will the American writer willing to pay US$50 for a fish sea-caught fish. If
he wants to pay US$ 5 for a sea-caught fish, he should then think deeply how
it can deep fish for US $5.

for US $5 per sea-caught fish, the fleet size of the fishing boats have to
be in the thousands instead of just, let say, a 20 boat fishing fleet.

Therefore the writer of this article is stupid and his head is just a
coconut fills with water with no brain.

"ltlee1" wrote in message
news:2b0f5499-fd3b-4204-9887-5db56a1b088dn@googlegroups.com...

On Tuesday, April 27, 2021 at 4:15:14 PM UTC-4, David P. wrote:
> China’s Fishing Fleet, the World’s Largest, Drives Beijing’s Global
> Ambitions
> By Chuin-Wei Yap, 4/21/21, Wall St. Journal
>
> In Beijing’s push to become a maritime superpower, China’s
> fishing fleet has grown to become the world’s largest by
> far—and it has turned more aggressive, provoking tensions
> around the globe.
>
> The fleet brings in millions of tons of seafood a year to
> feed the country’s booming middle class. Foreign govts,
> fishermen & conservation groups have accused the fleet of
> illegal fishing, including by using banned equipment &
> venturing into other countries’ territory. That fishing has
> upended local economies & threatens ecosystems including
> around the Galápagos Islands, affected govts & fishermen say.
>
> The Chinese fleet is helping the country stake out a bigger
> presence at sea, including by building a world-wide network
> of ports. The vessels, rigged with winches & booms & pulling
> giant nets, can be twice as large as a naval patrol boat,
> at an avg of almost 200 ft long. Fishing crews have helped
> establish island settlements in waters subject to
> territorial disputes with neighbors.
>
> An analysis of transponder & global vessel registration
> data indicates Chinese boats involved in distant-water ops—
> meaning outside a country’s own territorial waters—total as
> many as 17,000, acc. to London-based researcher Overseas
> Development Inst. Official data & analyst estimates indicate
> China’s closest competitors in the industry, Taiwan &
> South Korea, have some 2,500 such vessels combined.
>
> China’s foreign ministry said that legally registered
> vessels were far lower, at 2,701 as of 2019. China agreed
> to cap its fishing vessels at 3,000 in 2017, in response to
> World Trade Org efforts to cut govt subsidies that
> contribute to overfishing.
>
> The ministry said that Beijing implements the world’s
> strictest oversight on distant-water fishing. It has
> toughened legal penalties on errant fishing in recent years.
>
> Ecuador & Peru placed their navies on alert last year to
> track hundreds of Chinese trawlers massing near S American
> fisheries. In Asia, govts & the fishing industry have
> complained of hundreds of Chinese incursions in their
> domestic waters. Indonesia has taken to periodically
> detonating seized Chinese trawlers in hopes it will deter
> other Chinese boats from poaching in its waters.
>
> From 2010-19, Chinese-flagged or owned vessels accounted
> for 21% of global fishing offenses logged by Spyglass, a
> Vancouver-based fishing crime database, up from 16% the
> previous decade. A 2019 global ranking by Geneva-based
> Global Initiative, a transnational crime watchdog, placed
> China first in the prevalence of illegal fishing by nations.
>
> In the West African nation of Ghana, fishermen say that
> dozens of Chinese trawlers, equipped to fish at all depths,
> are venturing daily from their deep-sea license remits into
> Ghana’s sovereign waters, targeting shallow-dwelling fish
> that used to be a local preserve.
>
> “Because the trawlers have depleted our fish stocks at a
> very fast rate, we all owe debts, & it has made our life
> extremely difficult,” said Kojo Panyin, a 53-year-old
> fisherman in Axim, a Ghanaian fishing village. Such fishing
> also destroys the nets of local fisherman, he said.
>
> China’s foreign ministry said it requires its fishers
> abroad to comply with local laws.
>
> For China, the industry feeds a rapidly growing middle
> class and creates tens of millions of jobs in fishing,
> aquaculture and seafood processing. It also reflects China’s
> growing assertiveness. Distant-water fishing is enshrined
> in Xi Jinping’s national development blueprint and is a
> key part of his Belt and Road global infrastructure plan,
> which includes ocean routes.
>
> “The industry is important for ensuring national food
> security,” the blueprint says. “It is of great significance
> in safeguarding national maritime rights and interests.”
>
> Mr. Xi’s plan called for the world-wide development of
> 29 distant-water fishing bases, which help to project
> Beijing’s vision of itself at the center of a web of
> global infrastructure.
>
> In West Africa, Fuzhou Hongdong Pelagic Fishery Co. is
> using $60 million in state funds to expand a fishing port
> in Mauritania, China’s largest distant-water base, state
> media reports say. China has no naval base in the region.
>
> Chinese companies also are building a fishing port in
> Pakistan, near a major oil route & where Beijing jockeys
> for geopolitical influence.
>
> First fleet
>
> China’s first distant-water fleet, launched in March '85,
> comprised 13 fishing boats cobbled together from ships &
> personnel lent by freight companies, state records show.
> Beijing hoped that the state-owned flotilla, financed
> with a few hundred thousand U.S. dollars, acc. to records,
> would spur China’s engagement with the global economy.
>
> In its first full year of operation, the fleet harvested
> some 20,000 metric tons of seafood, official data show.
> At first, the country sold almost all of its distant-water
> catch abroad. Now the fleet sends 2/3 of its harvest home
> to China, acc. to state data.
>
> Since 2015, China’s distant-water catch has averaged
> two million tons a year, acc. to state data, which analysts
> say could undercount the actual total.
>
> The nation now is the world’s largest seafood consumer &
> in 2019 was the 3rd-largest seafood importer, after Europe
> & the U.S. Seafood imports to China totaled $15 billion in
> 2019, double the figure from 4 years earlier. Ecuador, the
> world’s largest shrimp exporter, sells twice the volume of
> shrimp to China as it does to the US/France/Spain combined.
>
> While 3/4 of the fishing fleet is now privately owned, the
> Chinese state maintains a large presence in the industry.
> The nation’s largest distant-water firms, China National
> Fisheries Corp., a unit of an agricultural conglomerate
> directly managed by the central govt, & its subsidiaries,
> remain state-owned.
>
> Closely held operators keep close ties with the govt, rely
> on state subsidies & often have state investors. The
> chairman of Fuzhou Hongdong, which is building the port
> in Mauritania, is a delegate to China’s legislature. The
> companies didn’t respond to requests for comment.
>
> The industry helps China act on territorial claims, such
> as by sending fishermen to set up settlements on previously
> unoccupied atolls in the South China Sea. In turn, the
> state regularly defends fishing interests.
>
> The Chinese navy, coast guard & paramilitary often join
> hundreds of fishermen in motorboats in regional seas where
> China has built artificial islands with military-capable
> facilities, including air strips, jet fighter hangars &
> naval bases.
>
> Vietnamese officials say a Chinese coast guard ship sank
> a Vietnamese fishing boat in April near the Paracel I's,
> which both nations claim. Beijing said the Vietnamese
> vessel collided with the Chinese.
>
> The incident followed Chinese altercations with fishing
> vessels from other South China Sea claimants such as
> the Philippines and Indonesia over the years.
>
> ‘Rule-breaking’
>
> Maritime law allows coastal states varying levels of
> control over seas up to 200 nautical miles from their
> shoreline. Most states seek to restrict foreign operations
> in their territorial waters, including fishing.
>
> In October, Malaysia’s maritime authorities detained six
> Chinese fishing vessels, accusing them of trespassing
> in its waters.
>
> In Aug, some 300 Chinese trawlers fished near Ecuador’s
> Galápagos I's. Ecuador said it was the largest gathering
> of such Chinese vessels, & accused them of using illegal
> means to evade being identified, such as turning off
> tracking systems & altering their names.
>
> Ecuadorean officials said Chinese fishing threatened the
> biodiversity of the Galápagos, where some animals depend
> on the squid that the Chinese vessels were netting.
> China’s foreign ministry has said Beijing would halt the
> fleet’s fishing there from Sept-Nov.
>
> “Over the past 5 years, there has been a giant transfor-
> mational shift with the Chinese distant-water fleet,”
> said Steve Trent, co-founder of London-based conservation
> group Enviro Justice Foundation. “They are devastating
> the small [open water] fisheries, the fish that coastal
> communities depend on for their livelihoods.”
>
> Ghana reserves an area six nautical miles from shore for
> local fisheries. Chinese trawlers increasingly ignore
> these poorly policed rules, fishermen & conservation
> groups say.
>
> The modern Chinese industrial trawler can fish 700 tons
> a day, a volume that would take the largest African
> fishing canoe 6 months to harvest, industry data show.
> Residents of Axim, which largely relies on fishing for
> income, now have to drive to another town 80 miles east
> to buy the catch from the Chinese, said Mr. Panyin,
> the fisherman.
>
> Ghana’s marine police in June detained the Chinese-owned
> trawler Lurongyuanyu 956, accusing its operators of using
> illegally-sized nets. “You see this vessel thru global
> fishing logs, going back & forth from coastal waters to
> Ghana,” said Dyhia Belhabib, Spyglass’ developer & principal
>
> investigator for conservation group Ecotrust Canada.
>
> China’s foreign ministry said it had taken note of the
> allegations. State records show the vessel is owned by
> eastern China-based Rongcheng Marine Fishery Co. Staff
> there declined to make anyone available for comment.
>
> Fishing communities often are overshadowed by larger
> priorities in bilateral trade. Ghana’s fishing output
> last year of around $480 million is a fraction of its
> $7.3 billion annual trade with China, which includes oil
> & metals. Beijing funds big Ghanaian projects from dams
> to theaters.
>
> In neighboring Sierra Leone, where China has invested
> billions of dollars to develop mining & highways, local
> authorities say that illegal Chinese fishing drains $29
> million annually in state revenue—but that they are ill-
> equipped to police it. In Aug, Sierra Leone’s fisheries
> ministry said it had lost track of 3 Chinese-owned
> trawlers that fled after being charged by police a month
> earlier with illegally fishing within Sierra Leone’s
> territorial waters.
>
> Even on the high seas, which are relatively free from the
> scrutiny of sovereign authorities, Chinese trawlers have
> come under investigation.
>
> In May, Indonesian authorities began probing a Chinese
> tuna trawler where 4 Indonesian fishermen died while on
> the South Pacific Ocean. Beijing said it was looking into
> the case. Indonesian fishermen working aboard say that
> they were made to harvest shark fins, a popular delicacy
> in China, in breach of regionally-agreed rules on
> fishery management.
>
> “From Oct, we stopped catching tuna,” said fisherman
> Rizky Alvian. “Every day, we catch shark. Just shark.”
>
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-fishing-fleet-the-worlds-largest-drives-beijings-global-ambitions-11619015507

On Wednesday, April 28, 2021 at 4:15:14 AM UTC+8, David P. wrote:
> China’s Fishing Fleet, the World’s Largest, Drives Beijing’s Global Ambitions
> By Chuin-Wei Yap, 4/21/21, Wall St. Journal
>
> In Beijing’s push to become a maritime superpower, China’s
> fishing fleet has grown to become the world’s largest by
> far—and it has turned more aggressive, provoking tensions
> around the globe.
>
> The fleet brings in millions of tons of seafood a year to
> feed the country’s booming middle class. Foreign govts,
> fishermen & conservation groups have accused the fleet of
> illegal fishing, including by using banned equipment &
> venturing into other countries’ territory. That fishing has
> upended local economies & threatens ecosystems including
> around the Galápagos Islands, affected govts & fishermen say.
>
> The Chinese fleet is helping the country stake out a bigger
> presence at sea, including by building a world-wide network
> of ports. The vessels, rigged with winches & booms & pulling
> giant nets, can be twice as large as a naval patrol boat,
> at an avg of almost 200 ft long. Fishing crews have helped
> establish island settlements in waters subject to
> territorial disputes with neighbors.
>
> An analysis of transponder & global vessel registration
> data indicates Chinese boats involved in distant-water ops—
> meaning outside a country’s own territorial waters—total as
> many as 17,000, acc. to London-based researcher Overseas
> Development Inst. Official data & analyst estimates indicate
> China’s closest competitors in the industry, Taiwan &
> South Korea, have some 2,500 such vessels combined.
>
> China’s foreign ministry said that legally registered
> vessels were far lower, at 2,701 as of 2019. China agreed
> to cap its fishing vessels at 3,000 in 2017, in response to
> World Trade Org efforts to cut govt subsidies that
> contribute to overfishing.
>
> The ministry said that Beijing implements the world’s
> strictest oversight on distant-water fishing. It has
> toughened legal penalties on errant fishing in recent years.
>
> Ecuador & Peru placed their navies on alert last year to
> track hundreds of Chinese trawlers massing near S American
> fisheries. In Asia, govts & the fishing industry have
> complained of hundreds of Chinese incursions in their
> domestic waters. Indonesia has taken to periodically
> detonating seized Chinese trawlers in hopes it will deter
> other Chinese boats from poaching in its waters.
>
> From 2010-19, Chinese-flagged or owned vessels accounted
> for 21% of global fishing offenses logged by Spyglass, a
> Vancouver-based fishing crime database, up from 16% the
> previous decade. A 2019 global ranking by Geneva-based
> Global Initiative, a transnational crime watchdog, placed
> China first in the prevalence of illegal fishing by nations.
>
> In the West African nation of Ghana, fishermen say that
> dozens of Chinese trawlers, equipped to fish at all depths,
> are venturing daily from their deep-sea license remits into
> Ghana’s sovereign waters, targeting shallow-dwelling fish
> that used to be a local preserve.
>
> “Because the trawlers have depleted our fish stocks at a
> very fast rate, we all owe debts, & it has made our life
> extremely difficult,” said Kojo Panyin, a 53-year-old
> fisherman in Axim, a Ghanaian fishing village. Such fishing
> also destroys the nets of local fisherman, he said.
>
> China’s foreign ministry said it requires its fishers
> abroad to comply with local laws.
>
> For China, the industry feeds a rapidly growing middle
> class and creates tens of millions of jobs in fishing,
> aquaculture and seafood processing. It also reflects China’s
> growing assertiveness. Distant-water fishing is enshrined
> in Xi Jinping’s national development blueprint and is a
> key part of his Belt and Road global infrastructure plan,
> which includes ocean routes.
>
> “The industry is important for ensuring national food
> security,” the blueprint says. “It is of great significance
> in safeguarding national maritime rights and interests.”
>
> Mr. Xi’s plan called for the world-wide development of
> 29 distant-water fishing bases, which help to project
> Beijing’s vision of itself at the center of a web of
> global infrastructure.
>
> In West Africa, Fuzhou Hongdong Pelagic Fishery Co. is
> using $60 million in state funds to expand a fishing port
> in Mauritania, China’s largest distant-water base, state
> media reports say. China has no naval base in the region.
>
> Chinese companies also are building a fishing port in
> Pakistan, near a major oil route & where Beijing jockeys
> for geopolitical influence.
>
> First fleet
>
> China’s first distant-water fleet, launched in March '85,
> comprised 13 fishing boats cobbled together from ships &
> personnel lent by freight companies, state records show.
> Beijing hoped that the state-owned flotilla, financed
> with a few hundred thousand U.S. dollars, acc. to records,
> would spur China’s engagement with the global economy.
>
> In its first full year of operation, the fleet harvested
> some 20,000 metric tons of seafood, official data show.
> At first, the country sold almost all of its distant-water
> catch abroad. Now the fleet sends 2/3 of its harvest home
> to China, acc. to state data.
>
> Since 2015, China’s distant-water catch has averaged
> two million tons a year, acc. to state data, which analysts
> say could undercount the actual total.
>
> The nation now is the world’s largest seafood consumer &
> in 2019 was the 3rd-largest seafood importer, after Europe
> & the U.S. Seafood imports to China totaled $15 billion in
> 2019, double the figure from 4 years earlier. Ecuador, the
> world’s largest shrimp exporter, sells twice the volume of
> shrimp to China as it does to the US/France/Spain combined.
>
> While 3/4 of the fishing fleet is now privately owned, the
> Chinese state maintains a large presence in the industry.
> The nation’s largest distant-water firms, China National
> Fisheries Corp., a unit of an agricultural conglomerate
> directly managed by the central govt, & its subsidiaries,
> remain state-owned.
>
> Closely held operators keep close ties with the govt, rely
> on state subsidies & often have state investors. The
> chairman of Fuzhou Hongdong, which is building the port
> in Mauritania, is a delegate to China’s legislature. The
> companies didn’t respond to requests for comment.
>
> The industry helps China act on territorial claims, such
> as by sending fishermen to set up settlements on previously
> unoccupied atolls in the South China Sea. In turn, the
> state regularly defends fishing interests.
>
> The Chinese navy, coast guard & paramilitary often join
> hundreds of fishermen in motorboats in regional seas where
> China has built artificial islands with military-capable
> facilities, including air strips, jet fighter hangars &
> naval bases.
>
> Vietnamese officials say a Chinese coast guard ship sank
> a Vietnamese fishing boat in April near the Paracel I's,
> which both nations claim. Beijing said the Vietnamese
> vessel collided with the Chinese.
>
> The incident followed Chinese altercations with fishing
> vessels from other South China Sea claimants such as
> the Philippines and Indonesia over the years.
>
> ‘Rule-breaking’
>
> Maritime law allows coastal states varying levels of
> control over seas up to 200 nautical miles from their
> shoreline. Most states seek to restrict foreign operations
> in their territorial waters, including fishing.
>
> In October, Malaysia’s maritime authorities detained six
> Chinese fishing vessels, accusing them of trespassing
> in its waters.
>
> In Aug, some 300 Chinese trawlers fished near Ecuador’s
> Galápagos I's. Ecuador said it was the largest gathering
> of such Chinese vessels, & accused them of using illegal
> means to evade being identified, such as turning off
> tracking systems & altering their names.
>
> Ecuadorean officials said Chinese fishing threatened the
> biodiversity of the Galápagos, where some animals depend
> on the squid that the Chinese vessels were netting.
> China’s foreign ministry has said Beijing would halt the
> fleet’s fishing there from Sept-Nov.
>
> “Over the past 5 years, there has been a giant transfor-
> mational shift with the Chinese distant-water fleet,”
> said Steve Trent, co-founder of London-based conservation
> group Enviro Justice Foundation. “They are devastating
> the small [open water] fisheries, the fish that coastal
> communities depend on for their livelihoods.”
>
> Ghana reserves an area six nautical miles from shore for
> local fisheries. Chinese trawlers increasingly ignore
> these poorly policed rules, fishermen & conservation
> groups say.
>
> The modern Chinese industrial trawler can fish 700 tons
> a day, a volume that would take the largest African
> fishing canoe 6 months to harvest, industry data show.
> Residents of Axim, which largely relies on fishing for
> income, now have to drive to another town 80 miles east
> to buy the catch from the Chinese, said Mr. Panyin,
> the fisherman.
>
> Ghana’s marine police in June detained the Chinese-owned
> trawler Lurongyuanyu 956, accusing its operators of using
> illegally-sized nets. “You see this vessel thru global
> fishing logs, going back & forth from coastal waters to
> Ghana,” said Dyhia Belhabib, Spyglass’ developer & principal
>
> investigator for conservation group Ecotrust Canada.
>
> China’s foreign ministry said it had taken note of the
> allegations. State records show the vessel is owned by
> eastern China-based Rongcheng Marine Fishery Co. Staff
> there declined to make anyone available for comment.
>
> Fishing communities often are overshadowed by larger
> priorities in bilateral trade. Ghana’s fishing output
> last year of around $480 million is a fraction of its
> $7.3 billion annual trade with China, which includes oil
> & metals. Beijing funds big Ghanaian projects from dams
> to theaters.
>
> In neighboring Sierra Leone, where China has invested
> billions of dollars to develop mining & highways, local
> authorities say that illegal Chinese fishing drains $29
> million annually in state revenue—but that they are ill-
> equipped to police it. In Aug, Sierra Leone’s fisheries
> ministry said it had lost track of 3 Chinese-owned
> trawlers that fled after being charged by police a month
> earlier with illegally fishing within Sierra Leone’s
> territorial waters.
>
> Even on the high seas, which are relatively free from the
> scrutiny of sovereign authorities, Chinese trawlers have
> come under investigation.
>
> In May, Indonesian authorities began probing a Chinese
> tuna trawler where 4 Indonesian fishermen died while on
> the South Pacific Ocean. Beijing said it was looking into
> the case. Indonesian fishermen working aboard say that
> they were made to harvest shark fins, a popular delicacy
> in China, in breach of regionally-agreed rules on
> fishery management.
>
> “From Oct, we stopped catching tuna,” said fisherman
> Rizky Alvian. “Every day, we catch shark. Just shark.”
>
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-fishing-fleet-the-worlds-largest-drives-beijings-global-ambitions-11619015507
-------------