![chinese fish bowl chinese fish bowl](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2012/AMS/2012_AMS_03010_0325_000(a_chinese_famille_rose_european_subject_fish-bowl_qianlong).jpg)
In its reports to the FAO dating as far back as the 1980s, the study found, Beijing would overstate the number of fish caught within its own exclusive economic zone, while underreporting how much was caught far away. That’s approximately 10 times the size of the entire US distant water commercial fishing fleet.Ī country can draw up agreements to allow other nations’ fishermen to catch “surplus” stock in their exclusive economic zones, and China likely has many of these in place, including with Mauritania, Senegal, and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, according to the Wilson Center, a Washington, DC-based independent research firm.īut a 2016 paper published in Nature Communications found that China has been disguising the total amount of fish caught by its distant-water fishing fleets. They upped their distant-water fishing-sourcing catches out on the high seas and in the commercial fishing territories of other countries.Īccording to a 2016 report by the environmental watchdog organization Greenpeace, the Middle Kingdom’s total number of fishing boats sailing on the high seas and in other countries’ coastal areas runs just under 2,500.
![chinese fish bowl chinese fish bowl](https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/ogallerie/07/614007/H0060-L155172089.jpg)
![chinese fish bowl chinese fish bowl](https://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server3500/10b89/products/2306/images/8447/DSCN6546__75760.1446056082.1280.1280.jpg)
![chinese fish bowl chinese fish bowl](https://a.1stdibscdn.com/archivesE/upload/1722654/f_2519742/ORG_mainB_z.jpg)
(Some Chinese fishermen try to turn a profit off their bycatch, trading trash fish to West African citizens in exchange for labor or selling them to fish meal processors in China sea turtles, on the other hand, can be sold on the black market in the mainland.)ĭuring a 2013 visit to Tanmen, a fishing village on Hainan island in the South China Sea, Chinese president Xi Jinping urged his nation’s fishermen to “build bigger ships and venture even farther into the oceans and catch bigger fish.” Chinese fishermen took these messages to heart. This unintended catch can include endangered species like sea turtles, as well as “trash fish,” species of edible fish that many in China (and in other countries) do not want to eat. In addition to destroying coral reefs and the habitats necessary for healthy ocean wildlife populations, fishermen discard the bycatch, the sea creatures accidentally trapped in theirs nets. That’s thanks to trawling, a practice in which fishermen drag long nets along the ocean floor and kill practically any living thing in their path. Within China’s own exclusive economic zone, the nation has lost “one-half of its coastal wetlands, 57% of mangroves, and 80% of coral reefs, most of which are critical spawning, nursing, or feeding grounds for fish,” according to a 2016 study undertaken by a team of international experts. But it’s also clear Chinese fishermen are desperate for new sources of fresh catch. Reporters have drawn connections between the string of South Korean skirmishes and political tension around the South China Sea (China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, and Malaysia all have claims over parts of this body of water). The South Korean Defense Ministry via AP South Korean marines and navy soldiers on a boat conduct a crackdown against China’s illegal fishing in neutral waters around Ganghwa island, South Korea. And in November 2016, members of the South Korean coast guard opened fire on two Chinese fishing vessels that had threatened to ram patrol boats in the Yellow Sea near Incheon-not a month after Chinese fishermen rammed and sank a South Korean speedboat in the same area. Recently, in light of illegal Chinese vessels draining the supply of fish, Somali fishermen have turned to piracy. In March 2016, Argentinian patrol units sank the Chinese fishing boat Lu Yan Yuan Yu 010 as it attempted to flee into international waters after allegedly trawling illegally off the coast of the Argentinian city Puerto Madryn. In 2016, a number of Chinese fishing vessels were shot at for fishing in other nations’ exclusive economic zones, areas of water off countries’ coastlines where those countries have sole rights to pursue economic activity. But in order to sate its population’s rising desire for nice pieces of fish-and to continue exporting seafood abroad to trading nations-the Middle Kingdom’s fishing vessels have resorted to catch throughout the high seas (i.e., international waters) and, possibly through illegal practices, in other countries’ coastal domains.