
How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans - chmaynard
https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-chinas-expanding-fishing-fleet-is-depleting-worlds-oceans
======
evancox100
Anyone else catch this? First:

“The Chinese government says its distant-water fishing fleet, or those vessels
that travel far from China’s coast, numbers roughly 2,600, but other research,
such as this study by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), puts this
number closer to 17,000”.

Several paragraphs later:

“More recently, the Chinese government has stopped calling for an expansion of
its distant-water fishing fleet and released a five-year plan in 2017 that
restricts the total number of offshore fishing vessels to under 3,000 by
2021.“

Why would you need to announce a plan to reduce your fleet to below 3,000 if
it’s only “officially“ at 2,700? Is this a case of inconsistent propaganda?

~~~
libertine
>Why would you need to announce a plan to reduce your fleet to below 3,000 if
it’s only “officially“ at 2,700? Is this a case of inconsistent propaganda?

That's the thing about lies.

At first glance is the perfect solution, you simply lie and the problem goes
away.

The tricky part is when the lies start you add up and you need to keep track
of it, and/or when the lie is easily observable.

I think this is a bit of both: they don't even know what they are keeping
track of, and the observers see the lies.

Because this isn't the simple case of propaganda when you try to reframe
things, this is just made up shit.

Now the true question is: WHY THE HELL DOES CHINA KEEP THIS NARRATIVE FILLED
WITH SUCH OBVIOUS LIES?

The answer is: no one does anything about it, neither did anything about it
for years! Because of the short term benefits for some western countries.

~~~
hungryhobo
You are basing your entire observation on an inaccurate translation.

~~~
libertine
Eh, my observation is about a recurring behavior from China.

Could it be an inaccurate translation? Yes.

Is China abusing their fishing fleets and actively try to dismiss that? Yes.

Is China actively implicated in lies and deception, and are observed doing it?
Yes.

~~~
hungryhobo
Sorry there are a lot of emotions in your comment but very little substance.

>Eh, my observation is about a recurring behavior from China

Can you clarify which behaviour you are referring to? It's been pointed out
that the Chinese goal was to stabilize their fishing fleet size to around
3000, which given their normal growth focused policies seemed like some thing
worthy of planning. And not propaganda as the parent comment was implying

------
oblio
We badly need some sort of industrial fish farming at a large scale. Oceanic
fishing at this point is basically like hunting gathering at an industrial
scale: we just catch whatever we can and who cares if it grows back, not our
problem, "nature" will take care of it. The same way we seed, till, etc., we
should be doing the same thing with oceans and "hunting" aka fishing should
only be allowed as a hobby.

In a somewhat "positive" side effect of what they're doing, traditional
Chinese medicine will probably go extinct together will all the fish and
animal species they will wipe off the face of the Earth...

~~~
geddy
What we need is to stop consuming animals and animal products, or we’ll keep
having economy destroying pandemics. Not to mention the obvious problem that
farming is horrendous for the animals. Animals aren’t some inanimate object.

~~~
huffmsa
And we're not some magical creature free from biological needs.

Eating other animals is what got us here. Until we can print actual,
chemically identical meat on a conveyor belt, our reliance on animals will
continue.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
> And we're not some magical creature free from biological needs.

Am I? I became 100% vegetarian a year ago. No one around me was vegetarian. I
saved money. I never ate so well and I'm in my best physical form ever. What
is magical?

~~~
noworriesnate
You need supplements to grow healthily as a vegetarian. For example, it's
difficult to get Omega 3, 6 and 9 from plants. You need supplements for that.

Also you've only been vegetarian a year. Being a vegetarian from birth to
death without supplements would be much more difficult to do without major
deficiencies.

Also vegetarians today have the option of buying food from all over the world,
but that wasn't the case for the vast majority of human history.

~~~
jnathsf
You only need to look at cultures like in India, Taiwan and elsewhere that
have large vegetarian population to see that your statement doesn’t hold
water.

~~~
searchableguy
You shouldn't point toward us as an example.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6540890](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6540890)

[https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-
nation/malnutr...](https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-
nation/malnutrition-behind-69-per-cent-deaths-among-children-below-5-years-in-
india-unicef-report/articleshow/71618288.cms)

Guess where do you get folic acid, b12, etc from?

As a side note, OTC supplements are not as effective. You need prescription
supplements if anyone is considering going vegetarian.

~~~
La1n
Guess where animals get their B12 from, supplemented to their feed

------
mymythisisthis
In the year 1289, King Philip IV of France was worried about fish. “Each and
every watershed of our realm,” he proclaimed, “large and small, yields nothing
due to the evil of fishers.”
[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/05/medieval...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/05/medieval-
people-were-already-ruining-fish/589837/)

I've already witnessed the collapse of fishing in the oceans.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_north...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery)

~~~
atomi
I'm so bearish on humanity. A future like The Expanse is starting to look
optimistic.

~~~
blaser-waffle
Humanity isn't the problem, just the number of humans. Historically we had
wars and famines and disease to take care of that. Neo-COVID will reduce those
numbers.

Or else we learn to manage resource or something.

------
sradman
Related HN thread _Unmasking China 's Invisible Fleet_ [1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23926128](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23926128)

------
f00zz
Commercial scale cell-cultured meat can't arrive soon enough.

~~~
bzb4
I worry that once that time arrives the government will force us to consume it
by severely taxing actual meat.

~~~
geddy
Great, meat SHOULD cost a fortune. The actual cost of meat is not what you pay
for it, the only reason it’s even affordable is because the taxpayer shoulders
the burden of the farm subsidies. Cut those out and a $5 Big Mac would cost
almost $15.

Add to that the environmental impact, insane water usage, and the fact that
meat production will continue to destroy economies through pandemics, and it
should cost 10-15x more than it does now.

~~~
axaxs
I don't have the numbers in front of me, but this doesn't seem like it could
be true. My Dad always raised cattle as a pastime, just a handful, one for
meat and sold the rest. Never subsidized, and he usually broke just about
even. A big mac has a fifth pound of beef. $75 a pound for ground beef? He'd
buy hundreds. So would I, and everyone else. Why bother cutting out steaks,
just grind the whole thing down.

So I'm curious where that number comes from.

~~~
Falling3
Agricultural subsidies that affect beef, either directly or indirectly, have
been in place in the US for almost a century. So either your father is quite
old, did not live in the US, or that meat was subsidized.

~~~
axaxs
OK, but I'm asking for -how-, truly. My father is getting up there, but still
raises cattle to this day. He buys them as calves, and sells them the next
year. They mainly eat grass and hay, but admittedly there is -some- corn feed
in the winter, which I understand as one source of subsidy, but I can't see it
amounting to much in the grand scheme just based on the amount. When selling
them, after accounting for initial cost, medicine, and extras, he breaks even.
And that's at today's 'cheap' beef prices.

~~~
mtnGoat
Industrial Carrie farming has additional costs. Like wise they need to be
transported, butchered, packaged, etc. This adds cost.... Your dad's break
even is still losing money for anyone doing this as a business.

------
vansul
Overfishing aside I believe cephalopods (such as squid) are expected to thrive
relative to other marine creatures - they seem to be well poised to adapt in
response to rising ocean acidification/CO2 and decreasing fish stocks

[https://phys.org/news/2019-06-squid-
climate.html](https://phys.org/news/2019-06-squid-climate.html)
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/23/octopuse...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/23/octopuses-
squid-cuttlefish-warming-oceans-climate-change)

------
freeopinion
Being completely ignorant of the fishing industry, these numbers of vessels
seem crazy high. I had no idea.

Let's say the Chinese have 15-20,000. What percentage is that of the entire
industry? Are there 100,000 distant-water vessels active in the world? Or only
25,000 total?

If the Chinese represent 20% of the world industry, but are trying to feed 18%
of the world's population, that doesn't seem outrageous. But if they represent
50% of the world industry, then my eyebrows go up.

At the same time, if the US represents 10% of the industry and 4% of world
population, or if UK represents 3% of the industry but <1% of world
population, doesn't that make it a bit hard to swallow?

Almost all of the numbers above are made up. I don't know what they really
are. That's my point. I'm reluctant to grab my pitchfork with my current level
of ignorance.

~~~
MagnumOpus
> Let's say the Chinese have 15-20,000. What percentage is that of the entire
> industry

For comparison, the 2nd/3rd/4th largest distant-water fleets are Taiwan at
around 400 and Japan and S. Korea at around 150-200 [0]. Probably the entire
rest of the world accounts for less than 10% of foreign fishing.

[0] [https://www.stimson.org/wp-content/files/file-
attachments/St...](https://www.stimson.org/wp-content/files/file-
attachments/Stimson%20Distant%20Water%20Fishing%20Report.pdf)

------
aitchnyu
Are there plans for an international fishing and plastic disposal sanctions?
Citizens can justly complain a faraway country is turning their fish rarer and
more poisnous.

------
jbob2000
What are they doing with all that squid? If the market price of the squid
doesn't cover the cost of extraction, then that must mean there isn't much
demand for the product.

~~~
learc83
Is there some kind of subsidy for squid maybe?

------
bamboozled
Is the world just going to have to let China own itself to learn the hard way?

Like, it just seems like a bad news generator and we constantly need to dance
around the CCP trying to guide them appropriately with sanctions, and threats
and incentives.

I understand depleting the oceans would be catastrophic, but how is this
regime ever going to learn? Honest question?

~~~
dirtyid
> bad news generator

Well someone has to choose what bad news to highlight and how biased to
highlight said news. For example, per capita, Taiwan and S.Korea have larger
DWF fleets, Taiwan significantly so. Factor in EEZ and you get a good idea of
why.

China: 1400m ppl / 3000 dwf fleet / 900,000km2 eez (3.8m with disputes)

Taiwan: 24m / 414 / 90,000km2

Japan: 162m / 162 / 4,500,000km2

S.Korea: 52m / 198 / 300,00km2

Spain: 47m / 65 / 1,000,000km2

[https://www.stimson.org/wp-content/files/file-
attachments/St...](https://www.stimson.org/wp-content/files/file-
attachments/Stimson%20Distant%20Water%20Fishing%20Report.pdf)

This EEZ map really explains a lot of tensions in these maritime disputes.

[https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7292/10134658063_fca4fc3da2_o...](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7292/10134658063_fca4fc3da2_o.jpg)

~~~
MagnumOpus
Except if you even read the first line of the article, China has an unreported
additional DWF fleet of another 14,000 vessels.

~~~
dirtyid
I read the actual study. It counts any vessel that crossed out of Chinese EEZ
during the year to be DWF which is a stupid metric. Further Chinese EEZ was
undefined which is a gross oversight. Does the count include vessels operating
in SCS within China's 9dash bounds? Obviously China wouldn't categorize
vessels in her "domestic" waters are DWF. This distinction is as least worth a
mentioning but the paper glosses over it entirely. It's typical lazy reporting
based on poor research.

------
holografix
We need less people in the world. Our only hope to avoid mass human suffering
is that as more women get educated and independent they reduce the number of
children they’ll conceive to 1 or 2.

~~~
BurningFrog
This was Chinese government policy for decades. It _caused_ immense human
suffering.

[https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120114/under...](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120114/understanding-
chinas-one-child-policy.asp)

Personally, I think people are an asset, not a burden, and the greatest things
in the world! That's right, I mean _you_ , dear reader. Straighten that back!

~~~
kwanbix
Something doesn't ads up. If we are 50 couples, and we all have 2 kids, when
the original parents die we are still 100 people. If 50 couples have 1 kid,
wen the original parents die, you have half of the population. If they did
that for some many years, how come they kept growing?

~~~
angio
There are several exceptions to the law[0]:

* The couple has just one child, who is handicapped or unable to work because of non-hereditary diseases. * Both parents are only children themselves, and have just one child so far.

* The couple adopted their first child because one of them was diagnosed as infertile.

* The couple remarried but have only one child in total.

* The couple are ethnic minorities who moved to the city from provinces bordering other countries and were given permission from a high-ranking Family Planning office before they moved.

* The husband has brothers, but only one brother is able to give birth, and the others have promised not to adopt.

* The husband is a farmer who married a woman already with a daughter (this only if that husband pledges to care for the woman’s parents).

* The couple are rural farmers, in which one spouse is a handicapped soldier with an injury grade B or above or can no longer work.

* The couple are farmers from the deep mountains who only have a daughter, depend on farming and are poor.

* Another exception to the one child policy allowed families in rural areas to have another child if the first child was a girl, in hopes to have a boy as their second child.

[0]
[https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=c5d870b...](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=c5d870bb2fc04f328d5e52cc864ff014)

------
euix
Don't forget behind China, you got India, SEA, the rest of Africa which will
experience a population boom this century. How we going to feed all these
people when their living standards go up? We need to get to mars fast.

~~~
hnhg
How is making Mars inhabitable easier than fixing the problems here on Earth?

~~~
richthegeek
The same reason writing a program from scratch is more appealing than the pain
of refactoring someone else's code.

~~~
throw51319
Ugh my whole job the past few months has been solving problems in other
peoples' code, and it's already pretty complicated code. So painful.

------
knolax
Disappointed in the article. When I saw the Yale domain I thought it would be
a research paper or at least something written by an expert on the subject. It
appears this is written by a journalist[0] and as typical of things written hy
journalists, leaves out crucial details/sources which leaves you with more
questions.

> the country’s commercial fishermen often serve as de-facto paramilitary
> personnel whose activities the Chinese government can frame as private
> actions.

???? The article doesn't go any further, but how would you use a bunch of
unarmed fishing vessels crewed by "illiterates" (according to the article) for
anything resembling a military purpose. Later on it mentions "crowding" but
doesn't really go into detail about what that means.

Plus what is a "distant water fishing fleet"? The article gives numbers for
overall number of fishing vessels and then "distant water fishing fleet", but
only provides context for the later number by saying the US has only 300 such
boats in its fleet. If a country with coasts on two oceans only has 300 of
these, it has to be some really specific category of boat right? What makes
this category important?

And of course there's the framing of the article, the fishing is done by
private commercial fishers but apparently their entire country is to blame. I
mean you can make some arguments about subsidies but then the article itself
acknowledges that other countries also engage in similar level of subsidies.

Also there's this weird fixation on North Korea, where it claims the Chinese
fishing fleet is depleting North Korean waters, but doesn't really tell us
about whether or not that's done with North Korea's permission. It mentions
that it would be technically illegal for NK to sell fishing rights, but that
doesn't really bear any significance.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Urbina](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Urbina)

~~~
sradman
From the linked Ian Urbina Wikipedia page:

> As a journalist, his investigations typically focus on worker safety and the
> environment...

As you point out, Urbina has an undeniable preference for international law,
regulation, and treaties pertaining to oceans and fisheries. These sentiments
seem to align with the values promoted by the Yale School of the Environment
[1]. The article links to an investigative report Urbina did for NBC [2] which
describes the evidence.

[1] [https://environment.yale.edu/](https://environment.yale.edu/)

[2] [https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/china-illegal-fishing-
fleet...](https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/china-illegal-fishing-
fleet/index.html)

~~~
knolax
> As you point out, Urbina has an undeniable preference for international law,
> regulation, and treaties pertaining to oceans and fisheries.

He might have an expert level knowledge on the topic, but he is using all the
standard tricks journalists use to paint a narrative. Bringing up statistics
without context and without defining the thing it's measuring, using technical
terminology without explaining what it means, alluding to certain things
without elaborating, and citing sources(if at all) in a way such that you have
to spend a lot of time hunting down an actual document supporting his claims.

> The article links to an investigative report Urbina did for NBC [2] which
> describes the evidence.

evidence of what? I'm not denying that Chinese boats are fishing in North
Korea. It still seems weird that in a situation where Chinese boats are
fishing in North Korea's waters, the fixation is on sanctions. I can
understand this being bad if North Korea doesn't want Chinese boats fishing in
their waters but both articles seem to imply that there is implicit approval,
in which case who cares? Sanctions are antithetical to free trade and human
welfare.

