Page 1 of 2 China's fishing fleet sets challenge to US
By Lyle Goldstein
With much attention focused on China's growing naval, shipbuilding and port
infrastructure developments, it is easy to forget another important dimension
of China's maritime rise: China's status as a major global fishing power. With
a total haul of over 17 million tonnes in 2007, China's take is four times that
of the nearest competitor, and far exceeds the catch of Japan, the United
States and other major Pacific maritime powers [1].
China's massive fishing fleet is concentrated in the Western Pacific, but is
also active now on all the world's oceans. This issue should foremost be
evaluated in an environmental context since the world's oceans are now under
severe strain from overfishing. Yet, there are also vital foreign policy and
international
security aspects to Chinese fisheries developments that can not be neglected by
US policymakers.
Indeed, fisheries issues are a significant security concern among Chinese
maritime strategists, because they fit squarely into perceived resource and
sovereignty imperatives now driving current maritime development [2]. As a
whole, China's actions as the largest world fishing power can serve as an
important signal for determining Beijing's willingness to conform to global
maritime norms as a "responsible maritime stakeholder".
During 2009, Chinese fishing vessels and fishing policies made global headlines
with increasing frequency. Beginning in March with the so-called Impeccable
incident, in which a few Chinese fishing trawlers in the company of two other
enforcement ships and at least one Chinese naval vessel surrounded and harassed
a US surveillance vessel 120 kilometers south of Hainan, one of a number of
recent and similarly dangerous incidents at sea.
Shortly thereafter, China's largest fishery enforcement vessel, Yuzheng 311,
was sent on a lengthy patrol in the South China Sea following legislation by
the Philippines to formalize its offshore claims to several islets in the South
China Sea. In June, Chinese enforcement of fishery claims came under
international scrutiny when Vietnam lodged a series of protests concerning
alleged rough treatment of their own fishing vessels by Chinese authorities.
According to one report, incomes of Vietnamese fishermen have declined because
of "China's stepped up [fisheries] enforcement", in the vicinity of the Paracel
Archipelago. Then in late June, a major incident erupted between Beijing and
Jakarta after Indonesian authorities seized eight Chinese fishing vessels and
detained 75 Chinese fishermen, who were allegedly fishing illegally in
Indonesia's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) - 59 of the 75 Chinese fishermen
detained were permitted to return to China in July.
Such incidents illustrate how the activities of fishing vessels and related
enforcement authorities of the Western Pacific region represent one of the
jagged edges of volatile maritime territorial disputes. There is a real
potential in China - and also among its neighbors - for fishing nationalism to
take hold because resources coupled with sovereignty disputes are at the heart
of naval development in the East Asian region. Unfortunately, fishing tensions
could aggravate these disputes to the point of military conflict.
The potential for this nationalism is implied, for example, in one recent
Chinese assessment that concludes: "Although our country has signed one after
another fishing agreements with neighboring states, the number of fishing
industry security incidents involving foreigners has unceasingly increased ...
Some [countries] even send warships to bump and sink our side's fishing boats
…" [3].
Official figures suggest that China has about 297,937 motorized fishing vessels
and approximately eight million fishermen. Chinese are largely catching, among
fin-fish, species such as anchovy, Japanese scad, hairtail and small yellow
croaker, while significant subsectors also catch shrimp, crab and squid.
The dominant method is trawling, and gill nets, set nets, line and hooks, as
well as purse seines are also used. The East China Sea accounts for the largest
catch, followed by the South China Sea and then the Yellow Sea. Among these sea
areas, only the South China Sea region has seen increasing catches of late. Of
China's major marine industries, marine fisheries and related industries are
ranked as the largest sector. Guangdong and Shandong are the leading provinces
measured by fishing output, with Fujian and Zhejiang close behind [4].
Similar to other fisheries worldwide, China is now confronted by a legacy of
massive overfishing that left its proximate fishing grounds depleted. As one
Chinese study recently opined: "Now, the fact is obvious that the development
of our nation's fishing industry has reached an extremely important juncture.
Most - if not all - of the fisheries have been fully exploited, and many are
already exhausted" [5].
Another study, published in Marine Policy, one of the leading international
academic journals on oceans policy, further reveals the scope of the problem.
Since the 1960s, fish species in the Beibu Gulf area of the South China Sea
have declined from 487 to 238. Stock density reached its lowest level in 1998
at just 16.7% of that in 1962, though fish stocks have recovered somewhat in
recent years [6]. Unlike most Chinese citizens, it is clear that marine
fisheries in Chinese coastal areas have not benefited from the economic boom of
the past 20 years, but rather have been the victims of rapid, loosely regulated
development.
The fact that Chinese fisheries are in a state of near collapse have prompted
some bold initiatives by the Beijing government, which includes a "zero growth"
plan for production initiated in 1999. By 2004, 8,000 fishing vessels had been
scrapped and there is an effort to bring down China's total fishing fleet to
192,000 vessels by next year. Summer fishing moratoriums now exist for almost
all of China's coastal areas [7].
Along China's southern coasts alone, tens of thousands of fishermen are
reportedly out of work as a consequence of the stringent limits associated with
the 2000 Beibu Gulf Delimitation Agreement with Vietnam. With respect to such
agreements, one China expert recently observed, "[such agreements] have
dramatically compressed the work space for our nation's fishermen. These new
difficulties for our hard pressed fleets … constitute one disaster after
another. [The agreements] could touch off social instability in various coastal
towns and villages." [8].
The Chinese authorities have offered substantial subsidies to displaced
fishermen and supported aquaculture as a viable economic alternative to marine
fisheries. Indeed, the aquaculture sector has witnessed enormous growth in
China during the past decade. One potential bright spot regarding the country's
fisheries and coastal environmental protection is that China has designated a
very considerable number of marine reserves along its lengthy coast [9].
Experience suggests that marine reserves may be an effective tool for
recovering the health of damaged fisheries, but related enforcement measures
are not especially promising to date.
Indeed, China's Fisheries Law Enforcement Command (FLEC), as Beijing's major
enforcement tool for fisheries management, appears to face significant
challenges. Unlike the United States and Japan, China lacks a single unified
coastguard with a broad maritime enforcement mandate. As a result, according to
one China fisheries expert: "Although the central government has taken steps …
the results are minimal … Fisheries enforcement is congenitally deficient … The
failure of fisheries management is already beyond dispute" [10].
Among the various agencies responsible for coastal management responsibilities
in China, the FLEC, which is subordinate to the Ministry of Agriculture,
appears to lag well behind better funded and managed agencies, such as the
Maritime Safety Administration (of the Ministry of Communications). Recent
reporting does suggest that the further development of FLEC is an increasing
priority for Beijing.
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