How China targets the global fish supply
China now fishes in any ocean in the world, & on a scale that dwarfs some countries’ entire fleets…
summer of 2020…nearly 300 Chinese ships…accounted for nearly 99% of the fishing near the Galápagos…
“Our sea can’t handle this pressure anymore”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/10/01/asia-pacific/china-global-fishing-operation/
Over the last two decades, China has built the world’s largest deep-water fishing fleet, by far, with nearly 3,000 ships. Having severely depleted stocks in its own coastal waters, China now fishes in any ocean in the world, and on a scale that dwarfs some countries’ entire fleets.
The impact is increasingly being felt from the Indian Ocean to the South Pacific, from the coasts of Africa to those off South America — a manifestation on the high seas of China’s global economic might.
The Chinese effort has prompted diplomatic and legal protests. The fleet has also been linked to illegal activity, including encroaching on other countries’ territorial waters, tolerating labor abuses and catching endangered species. In 2017, Ecuador seized a refrigerated cargo ship, the Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999, carrying an illicit cargo of 6,620 sharks, whose fins are a delicacy in China.
Much of what China does, however, is legal — or, on the open seas, at least, largely unregulated. Given the growing demands of an increasingly prosperous consumer class in China, it is unlikely to end soon. That doesn’t mean it is sustainable.