Fishing Boat Diplomacy
A fleet of Chinese fishing ships off the coast of Peru.
By Drew Hopkins ‘24
It was a scene straight out of a Tom Clancy novel: a tense standoff between ships from competing nations on the high seas, with the threat of escalation and the future of a region on the line. Only the events off the coast of the Philippines in March and April 2021 weren’t a sequence from Hunt for Red October; it wasn’t the 1980s, and no rogue nuclear submarines were involved. In fact, the invading fleet that so alarmed the Phillipine Coast Guard and international observers wasn’t comprised of warships at all. It was an armada of fishing boats.
In March of this year, the Phillipine Minister of Defense announced that some 200 Chinese fishing vessels had entered the Phillipine’s economic exclusion zone (EEZ) and had promptly fanned out across the region. Despite official protests by both the Phillipine military, and the United States denouncing the action as a blatant attack on Philippine sovereignty and a violation of international maritime law, Beijing has continued to obfuscate and downplay its involvement with its fishing fleets. In fact, the strange phenomenon of hundreds of nominally civilian fishing vessels pouring into the EEZs of other countries is nothing new for China; in recent years, states as close as the Phillipines and as far as Chile have had to contend with this tool of Chinese power projection. The only difference is that the latest episode in the Philippines has the added backdrop of an ongoing dispute in the South China Sea, and that this new fishing fleet seems to be doing awfully little fishing.
The standard operating procedure for these sovereignty-disregarding, Chinese fishing fleets has solidly established itself over the last couple of years: hundreds of ships launched from the Chinese mainland will simply sail into the fishing grounds of another country, drive local fishermen back to shore, dare the local military to stop them, then leave. This process has played itself out in numerous southeast Asian countries, as well as along the Pacific coast of South America. Last year, a fleet of over 400 vessels first began fishing off the coast of the Galapagos Islands, a part of Ecuador, and UNESCO World Heritage Site, before moving off to the coast of Peru, and finally passing into Chilean waters.
The threat posed by these fishing fleets to the countries they operate in is far more than damaged pride or threatened sovereignty; indeed, they can cause significant, long term economic and ecological damage. China is the world’s largest exporter of seafood, as well as responsible for roughly one third of total global fish consumption. This demand for seafood is reflected in the gargantuan size of China’s fishing fleet, the world’s largest with several hundred thousand vessels. The sheer volume of seafood extracted, combined with a complete disregard for conservation, has led to significant depopulation of fish stocks around China itself, driving fishing fleets into more distant waters where they often infringe upon local industries. The depletion of fish populations is potentially disastrous for local ecosystems, especially in protected areas such as the Galapagos. In addition to the ecological damage caused by Chinese overfishing, these long-range fleets raise serious economic and humanitarian concerns. The Beijing sponsored and subsidized fishing fleets can effectively outcompete local fisheries through the use of intimidation tactics and sheer weight of numbers, forcing local fishers out of their own waters. Once the fleet leaves, local fishermen are confronted with vastly depleted populations that further endanger their livelihoods. In short, the ability of Chinese fishing fleets to catch such large numbers and drive out local competition allows China to dominate the fish export market by undercutting competing prices.
South American countries have not taken these underhanded practices lying down, with Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru announcing a common front against Chinese violations of their EEZs. This coalition is designed to prevent Chinese fleets from overwhelming the navies of the aforementioned countries by pooling together the necessary resources to monitor South American waters.
Nowhere is the threat of Chinese fishing fleets felt more acutely than in the South China Sea, where the confluence of economic concerns and international ambitions creates a tense geopolitical showdown. The South China Sea is a resource-rich stretch of ocean that is situated south of China. The tension in the region stems from the competing territorial claims of China and the other states of the region, including the Philippines. China claims that virtually the entire sea is part of its Economic Exclusion Zone on the basis of its historical influence in the region. China’s claims are almost unanimously agreed to have no basis in international law; however, this does not stop Beijing from building artificial islands, constructing air bases, and operating fishing fleets in the region. In the context of this geopolitical struggle between China and its neighbors, the fleet which entered Phillipine waters takes on far greater significance. Unlike similar incidents off the coast of South America, Philippine defense authorities claim that this Chinese fleet is not partaking in fishing at all, rather that it is part of China’s “Maritime Militia,” which undertakes covert military operations and asserts Chinese influence in the South China Sea. Furthermore, this provocation could potentially be a test of American resolve in the Pacific, to see whether newly-inaugurated Joe Biden would be willing to stand up against Chinese encroachment.
Manilla and Washington have announced that they will continue to cooperate against the threat posed by these vessels; however, as of writing, the 200-odd vessels continue to operate in Phillipine waters, and the lengths to which the US will go to remove them remain to be seen.