Chinese fishing armada dominates world’s oceans

According to a report by the Outlaw Ocean Project, China now has absolute control over the global fisheries, with more than 6,000 vessels on the high seas, a fleet more than three times the size of the next largest national fleet.

Research by the Washington-based nonprofit environmental protection group found that more than a third of the world’s fish stocks are overfished, largely because of Beijing’s “industrial-scale efforts” to remove fish, squid, shrimp and other shellfish from the oceans.

Part of the project report states: “To meet demand, the proliferation of foreign industrial fishing vessels, particularly from China, risks collapsing domestic fish stocks in countries in the Global South, while endangering local livelihoods and threatening food security.

“Western consumers, particularly in Europe, the United States and Canada, are taking advantage of this cheap and seemingly abundant fish caught or processed by China.”

China has a history of violating international fisheries laws and norms, pressuring other vessels, trespassing into other countries’ maritime territories, and mistreating its fishing workers.

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Ian Urbina, director of the Outlaw Ocean Project and co-author of the report, said recently that Chinese vessels operated primarily along maritime borders, while making “occasional intrusions” into domestic waters.

Now China is taking a “softer” approach, he told The Epoch Times.

“The company gains control of fishing grounds from within by paying to flag in vessels so they can fish in domestic waters,” he said.

Flagging involves using business partnerships to register Chinese vessels under the flag of another country, which then allows these vessels to fish in that country’s territorial waters.

“This means that Chinese vessels do not have to enter foreign coastal areas to fish illegally. The flag-in tactic is often legal. It does not cause a scandal for Beijing, but it ultimately results in the same depletion of fish stocks and environmental destruction,” Urbina said.

China is “buying its way into limited national fishing grounds” from South America to Africa to the far Pacific, he said.

Project researcher Pete McKenzie shared a recent example in Argentina.

“Chinese companies now control at least 62 industrial squid fishing vessels flying the Argentine flag, which is the largest share of Argentina’s entire squid fleet,” he told The Epoch Times.

According to McKenzie, many of these companies have been linked to crimes including dumping fish at sea, disabling their transponders to prevent them from being traced, tax evasion and fraud.

“We have examined trade data and it shows that much of the catch is sent back to China by Chinese vessels, but some of the fish is also exported to the US and European markets,” he said.

The investigation found that China currently operates nearly 250 Chinese-flagged vessels in the waters of countries including Ghana, Kenya, Iran, Micronesia and Morocco.

“The size and scope of the Chinese fleet is of great concern because most countries require vessels to be locally owned to keep profits in-country and make it easier to enforce fishing regulations,” McKenzie said.

Tim Walker, head of maritime security at the South African Institute for Security Studies, said restricting access undermines countries’ food security, as well as their sovereignty and finances.

He said China’s huge fleet of industrial fishing vessels also runs counter to Beijing’s conservation goals.

In 2017, China announced it would limit the size of its deep-water fishing fleet to 3,000 vessels after environmental groups raised concerns about overfishing, Walker said.

“But now China has thousands more industrial seafood processing vessels flying the flags of other countries and fishing in those countries’ waters,” he told The Epoch Times.

According to Walker, China’s strategy of clamping down is particularly common in the waters around Africa, where poor countries rely on the additional revenue from Chinese fishing companies.

According to the Outlaw Ocean Project, Chinese companies operate Chinese-flagged vessels in the national waters of at least nine countries on the continent, the most notable of which is Ghana.

According to the report, at least 70 Chinese vessels under Ghanaian flags are fishing in the waters of the West African country, despite the fact that foreign investment in Ghana’s fishing industry is illegal.

This fleet catches more than 100,000 tons of fish each year and, according to the Environmental Justice Foundation, Ghana’s fish stocks are currently in crisis, with local fishermen’s incomes having fallen by 40 percent over the past two decades.

Urbina said China has also replaced European Union fishing vessels operating in Moroccan waters.

He said dozens of vessels, mainly from Spain, have been fishing in the African country’s exclusive economic zone with the permission of the Moroccan government.

When the agreement expired in 2023, Urbina said China intervened and there are now at least six ships flying the Moroccan flag.

Research by the Outlaw Ocean Project has found that over the past six years, more than 50 vessels flagged to a dozen different countries and owned by Chinese companies have committed crimes including illegal fishing, unauthorized transshipment and forced labor.

Transshipment is a maritime term for the illegal transfer of catch from one vessel to another.

The report also details the disappearance of Emmanuel Essien, an official of the Ghana Fisheries Commission, from the Meng Xin 15, owned by the Chinese company Dalian Meng Xin Ocean Fisheries, on the night of July 5, 2019.

Essien went missing for two weeks after providing police with video evidence of the crew of another Chinese vessel illegally transferring catch from their ship to a second vessel.

Milko Schvartzman, one of the project’s lead researchers, said ships operated by Chinese companies “show a pattern of repeatedly turning off their automated tracking systems for periods longer than a day.”

“When vessels go ‘dark,’ it often indicates illegal fishing and transshipment, because it becomes more difficult for law enforcement to track a vessel’s movements or see if it is engaging with other vessels at sea,” Schvartzman told The Epoch Times.

Walker said the Chinese regime subsidizes the fishing industry with billions of dollars to create jobs, generate profits and feed a growing middle class.

“Chinese companies that enter the waters of other countries are also eligible for these annual subsidies,” he added. “Their presence in foreign waters also has a strong geopolitical motive.”

As US and European fishing fleets and navies shrank, Western development financing and market investment in Latin America, Africa and the Pacific also declined, the project’s report said.

According to Schvartzman, this has created a gap that China is filling as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s global development program.

He pointed to Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to the World Economic Forum, China’s trade with these regions increased from $12 billion to $315 billion between 2000 and 2020.

According to the WEF, the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China, two major Chinese state-owned banks, provided $137 billion in loans to Latin American governments between 2005 and 2020.

In return, Walker said, China has at times been given exclusive access to a wide range of resources, from oil fields to lithium mines and fishing grounds.

Urbina said the maritime domain is a key focus of China’s growth plans.

“These include exercising power over the high seas and disputed waters such as those in the South China Sea, as well as consolidating control over shipping, fishing in foreign coastal waters and ports abroad,” he said.

The Outlaw Ocean Project report found that Chinese companies now operate dozens of offshore processing plants, cold stores and terminals in more than 90 overseas fishing or shipping ports.

“China’s appetite for expansion and exploitation of natural resources shows no signs of abating, and I fear we have passed the point of no return,” Walker said.