China’s fishing fleet - the world’s biggest - is taking ever larger volumes of Argentina’s resources in a state-sponsored campaign of both legal and illegal fishing as stocks become depleted in waters closer to home, an Argentinian environmental group said.
Many Chinese boats are legitimately registered to sail under the Argentine flag and fish in its waters, while and at the same time, a growing number of Chinese fishing vessels are operating illegally under flags of other countries, the group El Círculo de Políticas Ambientales said in a report.
In the past, Chinese boats might sit at the edge of Argentina’s exclusive economic zone and switch off their automatic identification systems to conduct occasional encroachments, said the author of the report, marine conservation expert Milko Schvartzman.
But now they were registering to fly under the Argentine flag, even though owned by Chinese companies, and “slowly take possession of Argentina’s resources,” Schvartzman told Radio Free Asia.
More than a half of Argentina’s squid fishing fleet is believed to be from China, the group said.
“This is a state-sanctioned approach,” said the expert, adding that most of the Chinese fishery companies come under the umbrella of the state-owned China National Fisheries Corporation, or CNFC.
RFA contacted CNFC for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
The group said Chinese boats were also operating illegally in Argentine waters under the flags of other counties in a bid to conceal the extent of China’s involvement in the South Atlantic and avoid sanctions as well as publicity.
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Argentine navy monitors illegal fishing
Last weekend, the Argentine navy carried out Operation Mare Nostrum I in its exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, where Buenos Aires has jurisdiction over maritime resources both in waters and on the seabed, according to international law.
The navy deployed two maritime surveillance aircraft, a C-12 Huron and a P3-C Orion, as well as two corvettes to carry out the mission.
The P3-C flew over an area of more than 216,000 square nautical miles (741,000 square kilometers) and detected 380 fishing vessels, it said without elaborating.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if among them, a large number were Chinese,” said Schvartzman, adding that some vessels under Vanuatu and Cameroon flags actually belong to Chinese companies.
“These vessels not only send their catch back to China but are also captained by Chinese personnel,” he said.
Some of China’s fishing boats are engaged in other crimes such as forced labor and unauthorized transshipment, the London-based Environment Justice Foundation recently said.
Depending on the season, there are up to 500 foreign vessels regularly operating in and out Argentina’s EEZ, 65% of them are Chinese, according to Schvartzman.
“The rest are South Korean, Taiwanese and Spanish, and one or two from Russia.”
In order for fishing vessels to travel that far from Chinese shores, conservation groups say that Beijing encourages companies with fuel and other subsidies.
China has the largest fishing fleet in the world with more than 560,000 vessels, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
However, Schvartzman said that he hadn’t seen the presence of the so-called Chinese maritime militia – the fleet Beijing uses to protect its interests in the South China and East China seas.
Edited by Mike Firn.