The Ever-widening Fishing Net of China
Driven by the depletion of fish populations in its own national waters and its role as a key processing and exporting state, the Government of the People’s Republic of China has supported the rapid expansion of the scale and technological capacity of its distant-water fishing fleet, i.e. vessels operating beyond its exclusive economic zone.
Today, China has by far the largest of such fleets, operating across the globe in both areas beyond national jurisdiction and in the exclusive economic zone of coastal states. The burgeoning body of research that has explored the extent and behaviors of the Chinese distant-water fleet has unveiled the widespread, and harmful, economic, environmental and human consequences linked to overcapacity, high instances of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, destructive practices such as bottom trawling and the use of forced, bonded and slave labor and trafficked crew, alongside the widespread abuse of migrant crewmembers.
The Chinese distant-water fleet has become a major operator in many developing countries. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is particularly prevalent in these regions, augmenting the suffering and vulnerability of many coastal communities. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is facilitated by factors such as a lack of transparency and the opacity of seafood supply chains, limited monitoring, control, and surveillance (MCS) capacity, poor governance and corruption. In recent years, the Environmental Justice Foundation has identified continuous instances of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and human rights abuses associated with the Chinese distant-water fleet in West Africa, especially Ghana, where Chinese companies use elaborate schemes to hide the ultimate beneficial ownership of their so-called Ghanaian domestic vessels.
These schemes include joint ventures, shell companies and subsidiaries. This report presents a comprehensive analysis of China’s vast, opaque and at times illegal global fisheries footprint, with the specific aim of informing appropriate and effective responses by fisheries decision-makers in China and globally. In large parts, it focuses specifically on of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and associated crimes such as human rights abuses. The Chinese distant-water fleet has been chosen as the focus of the study given its size and global reach, the opacity of its operations, and its significant presence within countries in the Global South, where some fish populations are over-exploited to the detriment of coastal communities who rely heavily on healthy marine ecosystems.
It is informed primarily through a rigorous review of data published by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) detailing its various offshore fishery projects, i.e. vessels approved by MARA to operate outside of Chinese waters; and information retrieved from the Criminal Record of Fishing Vessels and associated platform ‘Spyglass’. This is the first such published analysis of official MARA data on its DWF, supplementing reports produced elsewhere that have relied on the use of non-governmental sources such as satellite data to estimate the size and location of the Chinese distant-water fleet. The findings of this global review further build on the Environmental Justice Foundation field based investigations, which have identified a wide range of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing offences, such as shark finning and fishing in restricted areas, as well as human rights abuses such as physical violence, debt bondage and confiscation of passports. Illegal fishing, environmental and human rights abuses, together with the failures of governance documented in this report, present a case of profound environmental injustice. These findings highlight the overarching failure of the Chinese government to effectively control and regulate its DWF. This is the latest in the long line of instances in which wealthier nations have externalized the costs of their operations – degrading the natural resources of nations and communities whose contribution to global environmental degradation is comparatively negligible.
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