There has been a long history of illegal fishing in other countries’ territorial waters by Chinese fleets. I think the general public is also not familiar with the scale of some of these ships - they are basically floating factories that catch enormous amounts of fish and process them completely on board. As this article notes, many of these ships turn off their AIS transponders to avoid being caught in the act. They are almost 100% China-flagged ships in other countries’ exclusive economic zone.
The most infuriating example is the complete disrespect for the environment from some of these companies, doing things like fishing in protected waters of Galapagos:
> These ships are linked to Fujian Provincial Pingtan County Ocean Fishing Group Co., Ltd., a Chinese fishing company which was sanctioned by the US in 2022 for its involvement in “serious human rights abuses” and illegal fishing, including operations in the protected waters of the Galapagos Islands and the transport of more than 6,600 shark carcasses, according to a US Treasury Department press release.
Related
Argentina Deploys Military as China Leads Fishing Swarm Near Waters (4 points, 13 days ago, 5 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43174844
US, Argentina to cooperate, combat illegal Chinese fishing (15 points, 2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40204195
Hundreds of fishing vessels vanishing along Argentina’s waters (1210 points, 2021, 592 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27412691
Argentina sinks Chinese trawler during pursuit for illegal fishing (4 points, 2016) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11300979
There has been a long history of illegal fishing in other countries’ territorial waters by Chinese fleets. I think the general public is also not familiar with the scale of some of these ships - they are basically floating factories that catch enormous amounts of fish and process them completely on board. As this article notes, many of these ships turn off their AIS transponders to avoid being caught in the act. They are almost 100% China-flagged ships in other countries’ exclusive economic zone.
The most infuriating example is the complete disrespect for the environment from some of these companies, doing things like fishing in protected waters of Galapagos:
> These ships are linked to Fujian Provincial Pingtan County Ocean Fishing Group Co., Ltd., a Chinese fishing company which was sanctioned by the US in 2022 for its involvement in “serious human rights abuses” and illegal fishing, including operations in the protected waters of the Galapagos Islands and the transport of more than 6,600 shark carcasses, according to a US Treasury Department press release.