Unmasking China's Invisible Fleet

I know this article is about the waters off Korea, but I noticed a similar thing flying over the South China Sea, in particular the Tokyo-Bangkok route.<p>Flying late at night over the SCS, and then peering out the window from 40k ft, you see endless lights - thousands and thousands of them. At first I thought I was over land, but then checked the map. The next trip I noticed the same thing, and then the same. It was literally tens of thousands of these fishing trawlers, stretching as far as the eye can see. Presumably all Chinese, and also presumably present not just to trawl for seafood, but to establish facts on the sea. It was truly frightening and shocking.

Something is a bit fishy (okay I’m stretching this a bit).<p>TFA discusses all the subsidies and other forms of help from Chinese government, then toward the end it says<p><i>Still, China is hardly the worst offender when it comes to such subsidies, which ocean conservationists say, through over-capacity and illegal fishing, are a major reason that the oceans are rapidly running out of fish. The countries that provide the largest subsidies to their high-seas fishing fleets are Japan (20 per cent of the global subsidies) and Spain (14 per cent), followed by China, South Korea, and the United States, according to Sala&#x27;s research.</i><p>First, kinda weird the percentage stats just stopped at Spain, making it impossible to put things into perspective.<p>Secondly, if Chinese fleets with all the alarming-sounding numbers only place at the third, what are the Japanese and Spaniards doing here? What about their fleet sizes? (Btw, IMHO the number of vessels may be a poor measurement of fleet size, compared to, say, total displacement; we all know how 17,000 little dinghies would compare to 300 aircraft carriers, to give an extreme example.) Do they have even larger fleets? Or do they pay more subsidies per head (or per vessel? or ton of product?) for whatever reason? Unfortunately TFA doesn’t discuss any of that.

China and North Korea appear to have a side-deal for fishing rights which violates U.N. economic sanctions against North Korea.

If you haven&#x27;t read the book written by the NYTimes journalist Ian Urbina that much of the original research this article refers to, I highly, highly recommend it [1]. Not only is it illuminating, but the writing and stories within it are extremely compelling on a human level as well. I got a copy of it over the holidays, and literally experienced the trope of having a hard time putting it down.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theoutlawocean.com&#x2F;the-outlaw-ocean&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theoutlawocean.com&#x2F;the-outlaw-ocean&#x2F;</a><p>Edited to include author name

A fisherman I was speaking to in NZ noted on their ships radar lines of trawlers just outside NZ waters presumably doing the same thing - dragging nets between the trawlers and indiscriminately taking everything - or bottom trawling and mowing the sea floor flat and void of life. It is the tragedy of the commons that we can&#x27;t manage this shared renewable resource. Canada has destroyed their Atlantic fisheries. If they can&#x27;t manage not to take every fish in the ocean I&#x27;m not surprised the rest of the world can&#x27;t resist it either.

In a trip to south africa, entire sections of some cities were being &quot;bought&quot; by China. In retaliation, locals occasionally refuse to sell fuel to Chinese fishing vessels, which, like those in TFA, were there illegally.

老外又在黑中国了

&gt;Critics also accuse China of keeping high-quality squid for domestic consumption, exporting lower-quality products at higher prices.<p>Always thought I tasted a difference. This explains a lot.