China’s Fishing Armadas Ensnare Pacific Economies, Ecologies: Island Leaders

In renewed Pacific pacts, United States steps-up maritime monitoring, risking combat fishery confrontations with CCP fishing fleets shadowed by Chinese warships.

Illegal fishing by the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) massive distant-water fishing fleets, including this side-trawler operating illegally in Argentina's territorial waters in May 2020, is plundering global fish stocks and destroying domestic and sports fishing industries across the Pacific, officials told a U.S. congressional panel during an Aug. 23–28 series of island hearings and meetings. Handout/Argentina's Navy Press Office/AFP

They sweep the sea in 400-ship swarms: Chinese fishing boats that—based on time of year and fishery—include trawlers, purse seiners, gill-netters, pole-and-line platforms, squid jiggers, tuna longliners, wood-hulled freighters, and sail-masted junks.

The fleet is shepherded by oil tankers, supply barges, “research” vessels, and hospital ships, shadowed by Chinese navy warships and coast guard cutters, and serviced by massive motherships with 500,000 cubic feet of frozen storage holds.