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Pacific News Minute: China's Aggressive Fishing Fleets Driven by Economic and Military Imperatives

Wikipedia Commons
Wikipedia Commons

Over the past few months, Chinese fishing fleets have set off protests from the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and, most recently, Japan.  As we hear from Neal Conan in the Pacific News Minute, these conflicts are expected to escalate.

Earlier this month, Japan called in the Chinese ambassador after 230 fishing boats intruded into waters around Japan's Senkaku Islands.   Of course China calls them the Diaoyu and uses the fishing boats to reinforce its claims to the islands.  But, as Lucy Hornby pointed out in the Financial Times, there's another motivation...the fish.  The Chinese fleet set sail right after China's annual summer fishing ban, imposed to protect depleted and polluted fishing grounds closer to home.  Hornby quoted a migrant fisherman named Li Minkui: "In all the seas of China," he said, "there are no fish."  The disputed waters of the South China Sea are little better off, with stocks down 95% from 1950s levels.

Earlier this month, China's minister of agriculture said that the number of fishing boats would be cut to help protect local fish stocks, but growth in the industry has been explosive...from 55,000 boats in 1979 to almost 700,000 in 2013. China is both the largest consumer and largest exporter of sea food, and the boats are so important to China's strategic ambitions, that the military subsidizes ice, GPS, communications gear, and, most importantly, fuel.

As both economic and military imperatives drive China's fishing fleets farther and farther from home, conflicts with its neighbors become inevitable and this year, Chinese boats were caught fishing illegally in Australia, New Zealand, and even off Argentina.

Over 36 years with National Public Radio, Neal Conan worked as a correspondent based in New York, Washington, and London; covered wars in the Middle East and Northern Ireland; Olympic Games in Lake Placid and Sarajevo; and a presidential impeachment. He served, at various times, as editor, producer, and executive producer of All Things Considered and may be best known as the long-time host of Talk of the Nation. Now a macadamia nut farmer on Hawaiʻi Island, his "Pacific News Minute" can be heard on HPR Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
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