China’s fishing fleet embroiled in rising tensions with US

From the waters of the Pacific Ocean to the coasts of Antarctica and Africa, China’s fishing fleet is rising as a brand new geopolitical flashpoint between Washington and Beijing.

The Chinese language distant water business is by far the world’s largest when it comes to catch quantity and fleet dimension, and is estimated to have about 10,000 vessels worldwide. It has lengthy drawn criticism from conservationists for its pillage of endangered species and from human rights specialists for abuse of employees on the excessive seas.

Over the previous yr, nonetheless, a crackdown on the business has develop into a pillar of Joe Biden’s broader Indo-Pacific coverage designed to push again in opposition to China. With US-China relations at their lowest level in a long time, fishing has develop into an more and more acute level of pressure between the navy superpowers, specialists have warned.

Elizabeth Freund Larus, a China skilled on the Pacific Discussion board, a US overseas coverage analysis institute, mentioned Washington had decided that unlawful, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by Chinese language boats was a “nationwide safety concern”.

The fleet was depleting fish shares worldwide and depriving coastal communities of vital meals sources, she mentioned. However much more troubling to Washington, Larus added, was the twin use of China’s fishing vessels for each business operations and as a maritime militia that allegedly helps China’s navy, coastguard and maritime police.

Beijing, which backs the business with beneficiant subsidies, has largely rejected such claims. The Chinese language overseas ministry advised the Monetary Occasions that China was a “accountable nation in distant-water fisheries” and had a “zero-tolerance” perspective in direction of unlawful fishing. It mentioned claims of environmental and labour abuses had been “not factual”, and added that descriptions of the militia got here from “ulterior motives” on the a part of the US.

The overseas ministry additionally alleged in March that US fishing vessels typically practised unlawful fishing on the excessive seas and in waters underneath the jurisdiction of different nations. “We name on the US facet to do its personal half on the difficulty of distant-water fisheries first, somewhat than act as decide or police to criticise different nations’ regular fishing actions and politicise . . . points which might be about fisheries within the title of environmental safety and human rights,” mentioned ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin.

These feedback got here after Biden instructed US authorities businesses to step up efforts to fight China’s unlawful fishing and labour abuses.

The US, Japan, Australia and India final yr introduced a satellite-based initiative to assist nations within the Pacific area monitor unlawful fishing and China’s alleged maritime militias. The US imposed monetary sanctions on two large Chinese language fishing corporations in December. The US Coast Guard can also be working with Pacific Island nations to police the business.

China’s use of a maritime militia alongside its fishing vessels and coastguard, coupled with its occupation and militarisation of the disputed islands, reefs and atolls within the South China Sea, had been seen by analysts as “grey-zone operations” that elevated the chance that different nations would reply extra forcefully, mentioned Evan Laksmana, an skilled on navy modernisation in Asia with the Worldwide Institute for Strategic Research.

Laksmana warned that the expansive Chinese language fleet raised the possibilities of a “nightmare state of affairs” during which nations’ navies and coastguards clashed at sea. “Does that imply it’s armed battle between two states?”

China’s fishing fleet additionally faces a collection of recent allegations of labour and environmental abuses from NGOs. Key areas of concern embody the Pacific Ocean, the 5,500km shoreline of west Africa and the waters across the Antarctic peninsula.

Whereas Taiwan and South Korea, amongst others, have confronted comparable allegations of environmental and labour abuses, the sheer dimension of the Chinese language fleet means it presents as a extra systemic drawback.

In a single instance, the UK-based Environmental Justice Basis has raised considerations over the operations aboard the Run Da 5, a privately owned Chinese language vessel, which was at sea for 565 consecutive days after leaving Busan, South Korea, in August 2021.

Amongst quite a few allegations of bodily abuse reviewed by the FT, not less than three employees suffered from extreme frostbite and misplaced fingers to amputation after being pressured to work in freezers for greater than 5 hours at a time. Immigration officers in Port of Suva in Fiji rescued eight abused employees in March, the EJF mentioned. Neither the Fijian police nor the fishing vessel’s proprietor responded to requests for remark.

Based on an IUU fishing index revealed by the World Initiative Towards Transnational Organized Crime, China was the worst-performing of the 152 nations surveyed, adopted by Russia and South Korea. The US was ranked twenty seventh worst-performing.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a global oceans watchdog, mentioned a monitoring journey earlier this yr discovered that in waters close to the South Orkney Islands, about 600-km from Antarctica, Chinese language krill-fishing boats harmed endangered species — together with whales, seals and penguins. Krill is a feedstock for China’s booming aquaculture business.

Sea Shepherd additionally mentioned it had helped eight nations in west Africa cease 86 unlawful fishing vessels since 2016, together with 18 for the reason that begin of final yr. Greater than 70 per cent of those vessels had been both flagged to China, or had been joint ventures with Chinese language helpful possession however flagged to a different nation. Sea Shepherd’s vessels act as transport and crew for fisheries officers and regulation enforcement in nations that lack their very own sources.

Peter Hammarstedt, Sea Shepherd’s director of campaigns, who has personally monitored the Chinese language fleet in Antarctica and Africa, mentioned it was widespread for Chinese language vessels to tamper with the necessary automated identification methods used for monitoring functions. He additionally warned that environmental campaigns had been turning into more and more enmeshed with broader geopolitical considerations.

“Conservation points develop into problematic due to the brand new chilly warfare that we discover ourselves in,” he mentioned.