A Chinese fishing vessel, equipped with an array of lights to attract squid at night, anchored in South Korean waters. A recent investigation I did for NBC News, based on new satellite data, has revealed, however, what marine researchers now say is the most likely explanation: China is sending a previously invisible armada of industrial boats to illegally fish in North Korean waters, forcing out smaller North Korean boats and leading to a decline in once-abundant squid stocks of more than 70 percent.
The North Korean fishermen washing up in Japan apparently ventured too far from shore in a vain search for squid and perished. The Chinese vessels � more than of them last year � appear to be in violation of United Nations sanctions that prohibit foreign fishing in North Korean waters. Having depleted the seas close to home, the Chinese fishing fleet has been sailing farther afield in recent years to exploit the waters of other countries, including those in West Africa and Latin America, where enforcement tends to be weaker as local governments lack the resources or inclination to police their waters.
Most Chinese distant-water ships are so large that they scoop up as many fish in one week as local boats from Senegal or Mexico might catch in a year. Many of the Chinese ships combing Latin American waters target forage fish, which are ground into fishmeal, a protein-rich pelletized supplement fed to aquaculture fish.
A North Korean ghost boat washed ashore along the coast of Japan. At least half of the squid landed by Chinese fishermen pulled from the high seas is exported to Europe, north Asia and the United States. To catch squid, the Chinese typically use trawling nets stretched between two vessels, a practice widely criticized by conservationists because it results in a lot of fish inadvertently and wastefully killed. Critics also accuse China of keeping high-quality squid for domestic consumption and exporting lower-quality products at higher prices.
In addition, critics say, China overwhelms vessels from other countries in major squid breeding grounds and is in a position to influence international negotiations about conservation and distribution of global squid resources for its own interests.
The government has robustly subsidized the industry, spending billions of yuan annually. Chinese boats can travel so far partly because of a tenfold increase in diesel fuel subsidies between and Beijing stopped releasing statistics after , according to a Greenpeace study.
For over a decade, the Chinese government has helped pay to construct bigger, more advanced steel-hulled trawlers, even sending medical ships to fishing grounds to enable the fleet to stay at sea longer.
The Chinese government supports Fly Fishing Inflatable Pontoon Boats 2020 the squid fleet in particular by providing it with an informational forecast of where to find the most lucrative squid stocks, using data gleaned from satellites and research vessels. The sale price of squid typically does not come close to covering the cost of the fuel required to catch the fish, Sala found. Still, China is hardly the worst offender when it comes to such subsidies, which conservationists say, along with over-capacity of fishing vessels and illegal fishing, is 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 percent of the global subsidies and Spain 14 percent , followed by China, South Korea, and the U. More recently, the Chinese government has stopped calling for an expansion of its distant-water fishing fleet and released a five-year plan in that restricts the total number of offshore fishing vessels to under 3, by Daniel Pauly, a marine biologist and principal investigator for The Sea Around Us Project at The University of British Columbia, said he believes that the Chinese government is serious in wanting to restrict its distant-water fleet.
A Chinese squid vessel flying the South Korean flag while fishing at night. While reporting at sea, my photographer and I filmed 10 illegal Chinese squid ships crossing into North Korean waters.
China has sought to extend its maritime reach through more traditional means, too. The government has, for example, expanded its naval force faster than any other country, with at least three fleets of naval ships believed to be under construction, while also dispatching at least a dozen advanced research vessels that prospect for minerals, oil, and other natural resources. In the South China Sea, the Spratly islands have attracted most attention as the Chinese government has built artificial islands on reefs and shoals in these waters, militarizing them with aircraft strips, harbors, and radar facilities.
South Korean squid fisherman, shown here in the East Sea of Japan, are being forced to fish farther off their own coast by the influx of Chinese vessels. Partly because China ignores most of the criticism, and partly because China is economically and otherwise dominant on the global stage, there is a tendency in Western media to lay blame on China for many of the same actions of which the U.
And while defining what is true or fair in the South China Sea may be no easier than it has proven to be in places like the Middle East, most legal scholars and historians say the nine-dash line argument has no basis under international law, and it was found to be invalid in a international court ruling. Clashes over fishing grounds involving the Chinese are not limited to the South China Sea.
Some of the Chinese crew escaped by swimming out to other Chinese vessels, while others were rescued by the Coast Guard. From the waters of North Korea to Mexico to Indonesia, incursions by Chinese fishing ships are becoming more frequent, brazen and aggressive.
It hardly takes a great feat of imagination to picture how a seemingly civilian clash could rapidly escalate into a bigger military conflict. Such confrontations also raise humanitarian concerns about fishermen becoming collateral damage, and environmental questions about the government policies accelerating ocean depletion. By Jon Hurdle. By Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar.
By Rene Ebersole. Search Search. Most Chinese ships are so large that they scoop up as many fish in a week as a local boat might catch in a year.
Our reporting team was forced to divert course to avoid a collision when a Chinese ship suddenly swerved toward our boat. From the waters of North Korea to Mexico, incursions by Chinese fishing ships are becoming more frequent and aggressive. Related Articles.
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