Top Stories

Do Latin American waters continue to fall prey to China’s fishing?

Dr. Evan Ellis/Center for Strategic and International Studies

I presented work on foreign deep-water fishing fleets in Latin America on October 13, 2020, to a virtual event held by the World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL). At the time of the event, 340 fishing vessels, mostly Chinese, moved from the Galapagos Islands, where they were believed to have fished illegally in a United Nations World Heritage Site, and continued their activities off the coasts of Peru and Chile.

My diplomatic colleagues in the WCEL focused the event on the multilateral institutions and international law in which remedies could be found, without singling out the principal problem by name: the depredatory actions by the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) deep-water fishing fleet, which I covered in a 2018 article for the website Newsmax.

These actions violate Latin America’s sovereign waters, steal its fish and decimate entire species. The problem is also the continuing refusal of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to acknowledge those abuses and live up to its responsibility under international law to stop them.

The PRC’s deep-water fleet of over 17,000 vessels engages in a range of problematic behaviors in Latin America’s waters, including: overfishing, the deliberate and accidental catching of protected species, using trawl and sea nets, and other practices that accelerate the collapse of fisheries; polluting waters with plastics and other refuse; and entering without authorization and fishing in the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and maritime protected areas of the region.

The violation of Latin American EEZs by the PRC’s deep-water fleet is long-standing, spans the region and is well documented. In August 2017, Ecuador detained the Fu Yuang Yu Leng 999 with 300 tons of fish — including 6,000 sharks — illegally obtained in the protected waters of the Galapagos World Heritage Site. (Pictured: Galapagos Islands residents demonstrate outside the court during an August 2017 hearing for the crew of a Chinese-flagged ship confiscated by the Ecuadorian Navy.)

In the case of the Galapagos, a study by the organization Oceana identified 90% of the ships suspected of illegal fishing as Chinese. Similarly, off the Chilean coast, 18 of the 22 vessels known to have violated the Nazca-Desventuradas protected area since 2018 are Chinese.

In Argentine waters, notable cases include: the Argentine coast guard’s seizure of the Chinese vessel Hu Shun Yu 809 near Puerto Madryn in April 2015 for illegal fishing; the capsize and sinking of the Lu Yan Yuan Yu while trying to escape in March 2016; the attempted ramming of an Argentine coast guard vessel and subsequent escape by the Jing Yuan 626 and four other Chinese vessels that were spotted fishing in March 2018; and the stopping of the Lu Yan Yuan Yu 016 by Argentine authorities for illegal fishing in April 2020.

Chinese depredations go beyond violating national EEZs.

Chinese demand for the swim bladder of the totoaba (a large fish), which has a pharmacological effect similar to cocaine, has nearly caused the extinction of the vaquita marina porpoise in the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. The porpoises are often caught in the nets used to catch totoaba.

Against such a long, widespread and continuing series of violations, the insistence by Chinese diplomats that the PRC’s vessels are not engaged in wrongdoing obstructs solving the problem and arguably illustrates CCP disregard for national and international law, Latin America’s sovereignty and the damage Chinese-flagged ships are causing to the region and its livelihood as they seek commercial benefit.

Geography makes it difficult and expensive for Latin American navies to protect their EEZs against PRC incursions. The Galapagos maritime protected area is far from Ecuador. The long coasts of Chile and Argentina make those countries’ 200-mile EEZs massive.

Chinese and other vessels typically turn off their transponders before violating EEZs and maritime protected areas, making their illegal incursions difficult to prove. Oswaldo Jarrin, Ecuador’s defense minister, noted that about half the Chinese vessels at the edge of the Galapagos maritime protected area had suspiciously turned off their transponders.

Chinese fishing vessels also regularly offload their catch to container ships and refuel at sea rather than putting into Latin American ports where they can be inspected. A Pew Research Center study estimated that on average, Chinese vessels only report about 8% of their catch.

In the WCEL seminar, lawyers observed that under international law, all states — including the PRC — are responsible for the actions of ships flying their flag.

The United States can help its Latin American partners to detect, intercept and prosecute Chinese fishing vessels violating sovereign waters and maritime protected areas. Yet, the PRC ultimately has the duty and the greatest ability to stop its fishing fleet from plundering Latin America’s resources, just as it controls the behavior of its companies and citizens when it wishes.

Latin American governments may be reluctant to jeopardize trade, loans and investment from the PRC by demanding that it take action. Yet, if the CCP does nothing as boats under its flag pillage Latin American waters, how can the region trust any Chinese companies, including those extracting the region’s petroleum and mineral wealth, signing secret memorandums of understanding with its politicians or building the communication and surveillance infrastructure that carries the personal data of its leaders and citizens?

Dr. Evan Ellis is a senior associate (nonresident) with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., and a professor of Latin American and Caribbean studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategies Studies Institute. An original version of this article was published October 16, 2020, at https://www.newsmax.com/evanellis/chile-deepwater-eez-galapagos/2020/10/16/id/992375/. A version was also published by Dialogo.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button