It is not clear to anyone in China's fishing fleet. The fact remains that this armada, which crisscrosses the entire planet, surpasses all the others, both in its scale and in its radius of action. In the eyes of Beijing, it plays a crucial role, both to feed its population and to place its pawns on the geopolitical chessboard.

For anyone sailing offshore, the power and recklessness of China's fishing fleet is a no-brainer. Embarked in 2019 for a week with a gambian maritime police unit patrolling more than 150 kilometers from the coast, we saw fifteen foreign vessels boarded accused of labor law violations and illegal fishing. All but one were Chinese. Earlier that year, for a month on a longliner that had left the Chilean port of Punta Arenas to go fishing for Antarctic toothfish in the Southern Ocean, we met practically no one on our way, except Chinese seiners (1), about a dozen, in an advanced state of disrepair.

In August 2020, more than 340 Chinese fishing vessels were spotted on the outskirts of the Galapagos Islands Marine Reserve off the coast of Ecuador, whose exceptional wildlife is a World Heritage Site United Nations Educational Organization, Science and Culture (Unesco) (2). Most of them had been chartered by shipowners involved in illegal fishing activities, as revealed by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) (3). In the summer of 2017, we had already seen prowling around this marine sanctuary a Chinese flotilla almost as large. A boat had been apprehended with nearly 300 tons of illegal catch on board, including endangered species, such as the scalloped hammerhead shark.

Bad night encounter in the Sea of Japan

The discovery in 2019 of eight hundred Chinese trawlers illegally present in North Korean waters could explain the disappearance of more than 70% of the squid that previously lived there in large numbers (4). By sending an armada of industrial ships to these forbidden waters, China has not only depleted fisheries resources; it also unceremoniously chased away the small North Korean boats that sailed there. This once invisible naval presence has been detected by the Global Fishing Watch website thanks to a brand new satellite technology. Asked about this revelation by the NBC channel, the Chinese foreign minister has neither confirmed nor denied it. He merely replied that his country was "conscientiously enforcing" United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions, which ban foreign fishing in North Korean waters, and "relentlessly" punishing illegal practices.

Emboldened by their numbers and by the armed security guards who sometimes travel alongside them, Chinese ships are often aggressive towards their competitors or towards any boat deemed threatening. We experienced this in May 2019. Wishing to see first-hand their illegal presence in the Sea of Japan, we embarked, for a fee, on a South Korean squid fishing boat. The captain was a small dry man about 70 years old, with deep eyes and parchment skin. On the morning of departure, all the crew members hired for the occasion defected. They explained that they did not want to be involved in a report on North Korea or to get too close to Chinese fishermen. The captain says he is ready to maintain the expedition with the assistance of his second, provided that we accept travel conditions a little more chaotic and less comfortable than usual, and that I stand ready to help him when he asks me.

On the conditions of travel, he had not lied. Our boat – a wooden boat about twenty meters long – had not been cleaned since its last outing at sea. A strong smell of rotten bait floated on the deck, which the garbage from the previous fishery made as slippery as an ice rink, and the crew quarters were littered with garbage. To top it all off, the engine let us go while we were several hundred kilometers from the coast, and it was only after an agonizing suspense of two hours that we were able to get back on track.

From the first evening, just after dark, our radar signaled the proximity of a boat. Accelerating the pace, we managed to catch up with what turned out to be not just one, but a good twenty ships, advancing in single file towards North Korean territorial waters in defiance of UN resolutions. All of them flew the Chinese flag, and none had turned on their transponder, as Required by South Korean regulations.

After about forty-five minutes of observation, during which we had shot videos and noted the identification numbers of the boats, we decided to send a drone over them to see them more closely. The Chinese reaction was not long in coming. One of the captains made his foghorn scream and flash his navigation lights, before suddenly deviating from his trajectory to head towards us. As we stayed the course, he continued to grow closer. Finally, when he was less than ten meters away, our captain hurriedly veered to avoid the collision.

Enough was enough for the old man. Deeming it too dangerous to linger any longer, he turned around and headed for the port. During the eight-hour journey, he appeared restless and remained surprisingly silent, except to whisper from time to time: "They really don't laugh..." Meanwhile, the Chinese fishermen, without disassembling, continued their journey to North Korean waters.

By massively subsidizing its fishing, China has given birth to a monumental and powerful fleet, adept at taking advantage of weak regulations to grow out of control. But it has also instilled in its sailors an ambition, a will and a boldness that very few States — let alone their fishing captains — dare or can challenge them.

Why such a deployment? First of all, it is a question of China placing its pawns on the world chessboard and ensuring its food security. Off the coast of West Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, it was able to fill the place left vacant by the U.S. Navy and intensify its fishing activities. Meanwhile, in the South China Sea and along the Northeast Passage, it claims sovereignty over popular shipping lanes, as well as underwater oil and gas deposits. "With such a huge and aggressive fleet, China is clearly in the driver's seat," said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. And, he adds, it intimidates: few countries dare to retaliate when their boats make incursions into their territorial waters.

On all the seas of the world

Cécile Marin

glimpse

China must also feed its 1.4 billion people. As most of the fish stocks on its coasts have dwindled as a result of overfishing and industrialization, its vessels are forced to venture further and further afield to fill their nets. According to a recent report by the Stimson Center, an American think tank working on security issues, the approximately 2,600 large-scale fishing vessels reported by China (5) represent three times the combined fleet of the four countries ranked just behind it, namely Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Spain. And this is a low estimate: in a June 2020 report, the British Emirates Development Institute estimates the Chinese offshore fleet at 16,966 vessels (compared to 13 in the mid-1980s). A power that, according to Poling, owes everything to subsidies: "Without this windfall, not only would the fleet be infinitely more modest, but it could not be present in the South China Sea. »

In an email, Tabitha Grace Mallory, professor at the University of Washington and specialist in Chinese fisheries policies, details the aid systems implemented over the past twenty years by Beijing. In 2018, these subsidies amounted to $7.2 billion, out of an estimated total of $35.4 billion globally. According to Mallory, these funds have an overall "harmful" effect, in that they serve to expand rather than reduce the fleet, in particular through aid for the purchase of fuel and the commissioning of additional boats. Conversely, only a very small fraction finances the dismantling of end-of-life boats.

Species threatened with depletion

The grants also contribute to engine renewal and the acquisition of more durable steel hulls for trawlers. They also cover part of the costs of stationing armed security guards and medical vessels at the fishing grounds themselves so that captains can stay at sea longer. Finally, Chinese sailors benefit from the data provided by the government to locate the most fish-rich areas.

For researcher Daniel Pauly, director of the Sea Around Us project at the University of British Columbia's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, public support "plays a major role in depleting fisheries resources, as it keeps vessels in operation that should be discarded." A point of view shared by many experts: as long as overfishing is made possible by financial aid, the objective of sustainable fishing will remain unattainable. Of the marketed fish stocks monitored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 90% are already suffering from overfishing or have been depleted — that is, they no longer have the capacity to recover. This is particularly the case for the ten most consumed species in the world.

China is far from the only country to subsidize its fleet with millions. More than 50 % of the world's fishing activities would not be profitable on their current scale without the state support they receive (6). In the area of deep-sea fisheries — those areas of ocean that are not under the jurisdiction of any state — Japan is the most profligate, with $841 million in subsidies, or about 20 per cent of the world total. Spain accounts for 14% of the world's deep-sea fishing subsidies, followed by China (10%), South Korea and the United States.

But, if we look at the number of ships in operation, China is far ahead of all other countries. In 2014, it boasted of accounting for more than 35% of the world's reported catches on the high seas. By comparison, Taiwan, with 593 vessels, accounted for about 12% of these catches, and Japan less than 5%, with 478 vessels.

Wild fish to feed farmed fish

In addition to gradually emptying the oceans of their fish, all these subsidies simply lead to putting too many boats into the sea. The result is overcapacity and unhealthy competition between national fleets, leading to territorial disputes. This exacerbates illegal fishing as captains desperately search for new, less crowded fishing grounds.M Peter Thomson, the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Oceans, uses a striking image to describe the situation: "It's a bit like paying thieves to go and rob your neighbor's house. »

According to the 2019 index compiled by Poseidon Aquatic Resource Management Ltd, a British fishing and aquaculture consultancy, China has the world's worst scores on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. However, it is beginning to take some timid steps in the right direction — even if environmentalists and experts remain skeptical.

In recent years, in the face of pressure from ocean defenders or foreign governments, Beijing has decided to control its fleet more closely. In 2016, a five-year plan was promulgated to limit the number of deep-sea fishing vessels to three thousand by 2021; however, it is difficult to assess the achievement of this objective in the absence of reliable government data on the number of vessels in operation. On the other hand, in June 2020, the Chinese authorities announced that they had banned their vessels from capturing squid in certain territorial waters of South America between July and November in order to allow populations to recover. This is the first time China has cancelled a fishing season on its own initiative. "I think the Chinese government really intends to reduce its large-scale fishing fleet," Pauly says. Whether he has the power to enforce his decisions is another matter. I doubt that he has more authority over his ships cruising on the high seas than Western countries have over theirs. »

Another field of action: farmed fish. With China's rapidly expanding middle class, demand for seafood is exploding. To reduce its dependence on wild fish catches, China provided more than $250 million in subsidies to the aquaculture sector between 2015 and 2019. But this poses a problem: to fatten their stocks, most livestock farms use fishmeal, a protein-rich blend made primarily from wild fish caught abroad or in international waters. And they consume huge quantities: before arriving on the stalls, a farmed tuna may have ingested more than fifteen times its weight in the form of flour. Ocean protection associations are sounding the alarm. This bulimia of fishmeal, by accelerating the depletion of fisheries resources, can only encourage illegal fishing and destabilize marine food webs, while depriving the inhabitants of poor countries of a source of protein essential to their livelihoods. "Catching all this wild fish to meet the growing demand for farmed fish is absurd," argues former professor Enric Sala, now an explorer for the National Geographic Society. These catches could be used to feed populations directly, with a much less devastating impact on underwater wildlife. »

The fate of krill, a staple food for whales, is of equal concern to environmentalists. In 2015, the Chinese authorities announced their intention to increase their krill harvests in the Southern Ocean from 32,000 tons to 2 million, in order to meet their needs for fish meal and fish oil. However, they have pledged not to touch "ecologically fragile" areas.

"Civilian militias" in conflict zones

Naval overpopulation not only degrades the environment through overfishing and stock depletion; it is also accompanied by an intensification of rivalries around fishing grounds, leading to diplomatic tensions and even violent confrontations. In 2016, South Korea's Coast Guard opened fire on two Chinese boats that threatened to hit its patrol boats in the Yellow Sea — the same place where, a month earlier, a South Korean speedboat had sunk following a similar attack. That year, Argentina also sank a Chinese vessel that it accused of fishing illegally in its territorial waters. Other countries, such as Indonesia, South Africa and the Philippines, have experienced similar skirmishes, mostly with boats fishing for squid — this species accounting for more than half of the Chinese fleet's catch on the high seas.

Among the countless Chinese ships that ply the oceans, there are some that don't just fish, as Poling explains. Some form "civilian militias" that are sent by the government to maritime conflict zones for surveillance purposes, but also, on occasion, to intimidate and destroy foreign fishing or police boats. To do this, Beijing has a specific program of financial incentives to encourage fishermen to sail in the South China Sea in order to strengthen its positions there. In addition to the benefits enjoyed by their offshore fishing colleagues, they receive a cash supplement to compensate for the fact that the area is relatively unprofitable.

A militia of more than two hundred ships is stationed around the Spratly Islands, a region rich in fish, but also, potentially, in oil and natural gas, which is disputed by six countries: China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. the Chinese fleet spent most of its time at anchor, in tight formation.

"If they weren't paid for it, the [Chinese] small-scale fishermen would never have the idea of going there," Poling says. Their presence has in any case hastened the decline of fish populations around the archipelago and caused many skirmishes with foreign boats, offering China a ready-made pretext to militarize the area.

(1) These are boats fishing with a seine, a net that is dragged on the sandy bottom.

(2) "Some 340 Chinese vessels fishing off Galapagos Islands protected waters", MercoPress, 10 August 2020.

(3) "Strings attached: Exploring the onshore networks behind illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing" (PDF), C4ADS, Washington, DC, 2019.

(4) "The deadly secret of China's invisible armada," NBC News, July 22, 2020.

(5) Fishing vessels on the high seas, or offshore, beyond the 200 nautical miles delimiting the exclusive economic zones.