China’s Fishing Fleet Is A Growing Security Threat

It's being used to stake a claim to the South China Sea, but it’s also engaging in illegal fishing outside of East Asia

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China’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea has long been recognized as a threat to global security. The Chinese have staked claims to disputed territories and ignored international arbitration decisions that go against their interest. What’s less well known is that its fishing fleet—which has developed into the world’s largest on the back of unfair subsidies—is proving to be a different kind of threat. Namely, a food security one.

The fleet engages in “illegal, unregulated and underreported” (IUU) fishing that U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Doug Fears calls an “issue of sovereignty and a national security issue because the competition for global fish stock and protein is ongoing.” While China is not the only country whose fishing vessels engage in the activity, it is one of the most flagrant and Chinese vessels involved in illegal fishing have been engaged in several proactive incidents this year.

Let’s start in the South China Sea, where such illegal fishing is being used to stake a territorial claim. Other nations, notably Vietnam, have reacted stridently to protect their territory from China and have sent their own “maritime militia” into action.

The region is home to a large portion of the world’s fish stocks and disputed hydrocarbon reserves. Meanwhile, above the waterline, over $3 trillion worth of trade goods pass through the South China Sea each year—including most of China’s energy imports and a large portion of its trade. China’s claim on the region is disputed by a number of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries including the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, and Malaysia. That dispute serves as a backdrop to other maritime disputes China has in East Asia notably with Japan and Taiwan.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    Please keep up with the international news! With all the domestic problems, we need more reports like this to help us decide what to look for in candidates foreign policy decisions, as well as how we talk about it in the public sphere. Thank you for the hard work!

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  2. Vermin8

    I just want to note that I very much appreciate the articles on international affairs. I don't comment on a lot of them but that's because my knowledge is so shallow. I trust the facts as presented in The Dispatch and it gives me an insight supported by rational analysis that would be difficult to find in mainstream media (liberal or conservative).

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    George.Skinner

    China's merely the latest country with a big fishing industry to be accused of irresponsible practices. Back in the '80s and '90s, the stories were about Japan, Spain, and Portugal. This is a giant collective action program that requires international coordination and active reinforcement if we're going to avoid destroying the ocean ecology. Sadly, it never happens - we just end up eating our way down the food chain. Why are squid and small oily fish like anchovies so popular in the Mediterranean? Because they fished out all the bigger stuff centuries ago and have learned to work with what's left. Keep up this trend, and we'll be eating jellyfish in a century...

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    Peter A

    Thoughtful and measured commentary on yet another example of China's malign behavior, one that gets no (at least to my knowledge) media coverage. Thank you for sharing - hopefully our policy makers will treat this threat as urgently as China's territorial claims and island building in the South China Sea.

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