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China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

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Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#41
Another year another DC China IUU "the worst" propaganda piece, except this time more stupid - already inflated esimate of PRC DWF fleet last year was 18000... now 32000 kek. It's hilarious to see PRC DWF inflation from 3000 in 2020 to 6000 to 18000 and now 32000 in 5 years. PRC ship building is incredible, but damn /s. PRC wild catch was like 12m in 2020... and 15m in 2024... but somehow catching that extra 3m required DWF to grow from 3000 to 32000. 950% / 29000 new boats to DWF fleet to catch... 25% / 3m tons more fish in 5 years. Truely lie flat behaviour from PRC fishermen. First, something like 70-80% of PRC fish production is via domestic aquaculture.

Can clearly see from empty perimeter in the heat map PRC fishing largely stays clear of SKR, JP EEZ. Reason DC thinktank "report" try to play up 12m hours in SKR is likely that hotspot just south of SKR peninsula, aka disputed Socotra rock EEZ. And I surmise majority of JP 1.5m "hours" are over disputed Senkaku EEZ. 4.5m TW hours, obviously PRC considers TW waters part of her territorial/EEZ waters. About another 1m hours from SCS EEZ disputes. AKA 18/21m hours are basically DC think tank doing customary China bad funny stats from disputed maritime delimitations. Incidentally using said delimitations to extrapolate 3000k PRC distant fishing fleet into 30k+ in 5 years... somehow.

PRC has largest absolute DWF fleet size, but per capita she's underfishing, especially relative to TW, SKR, JP, who're at only 30-50% aquaculture. Spain and Russia also up there. Also fraction of SKR/TW subsidies per capita, about on par with JP. Of course you don't see DC thinktanks hitpieces telling these actors to kill their DWF fishing industries. For PRC's DWF fleet to match other top DWF fleet's capita fishing efforts, she would have to fish something like 3-9x+ more. Unless one thinks PRC fishermen and citizens shouldn't have the same opportunities or access to seafood. Ecuador & Peru, two countries with ~1/30th population of China, together captures about about ~1/2 of China, who also has 1/2 the EEZ of these countries, which incidentally means China has to fish more in international waters.

The only reason PRC IUU fishing got media play / propaganda push in the last few years is US wanted to beef up influence of pacific nations playing up PRC IUU fishing so they can drive the issue to forward deploy coast guard and build influence. It's geopolitical lawfare, and it's unlikely to do anything substantive because any agreement by PRC on curtailing distant fishing would be on per capita basis which would first involve everyone else (JP,SKR,TW etc) to essentially kill their entire DWF industry before PRC would even need to make any cuts.

Again, let's stress how absolutely batshit stupid these new numbers are:

SKR, ~500-700 DWF fleet, 300-400k metric tons per year.

JP ~1200-1500 DWF fleet, 600-900k metric tons per year.

TW ~1000 DWF fleet, 400-600k metric tons per year.

AVG 400-800 tons per ship.

PRC... 32000 DWF fleet, 3000k metric tons per year.

AVG 90 tons per ship.

Or... avg 400-800 tons per ship

PRC ~3750-7500 DWF fleet

PRC official report is like ~2700 in ~2020, add 25% for 25% by 2025 increase catch and you get ~3400. It's underestimation (and while PRC wanted to cap to 3000 in last 5 year plan), but it's underestimate by 100s, not over estimation by 10000s. Like tag on highest maritime militia estimates of ~10k, and it's still almost ~20k over.

E: or just look at estimates of global seafood market growth... ~5% CAGR, ~+50B over past 5 years. Like 35B of that from PRC aquaculture growth. What's the 29000 new DWF doing? Global DWF size for major fishing nations is like 6000... so PRC adds... 500% that and somehow global fishing market grows by... 30%. US thinktank innumeracy.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#42
post #34
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tasmania produces a lot of caged salmon. It’s bad for the salmon (in terms of animal welfare) and it’s wrecking the local ecosystems. It’s not any sort of panacea. We need to stop destroying ocean ecosystems, not just shift the damage around. Overfishing of wild stock, habitat destruction through bottom-trawling and intensive fish farming all need to be properly looked at.

> We need to stop destroying ocean ecosystems, not just shift the damage around. Overfishing of wild stock, habitat destruction through bottom-trawling and intensive fish farming all need to be properly looked at. You criticise, yet don't provide any suitable recommendations or alternatives. People like to eat fish and have done so since the beginning of our species.

> You criticise, yet don't provide any suitable recommendations or alternatives.

I have always hated this take in any context I've seen it. Refusing to even acknowledge a problem as a problem unless presented with a solution is such an infuriating way to be dismissed.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#44
post #19
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

Short answer is energy efficiency. All energy on earth derives from 1) the sun or 2) geothermal Energy is lost as you move further from those sources. Plants converting sunlight directly to usable energy are more efficient than a higher order animal eating another animal that ate another animal that ate a plant. Now nature normally balances this hierarchy in a myriad of ways that you can go read about yourself. The p…

Short answer indeed. Cellulose, which is most of the plant mass, has a ton of energy stored in it but we can't access that while many animals we eat can.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#45
post #38

I find it interesting how China is so keen to develop EVs as a way to get away from oil dependency, yet other areas of their economy aren't treated with the same urgency.

Doesn't seem that confusing, they import most of their hydrocarbons so its a domestic security risk if/when they invade Taiwan. The US navy can blockade oil tankers but they arent going to be chasing fishing vessels around the ocean trying to stop fishing.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#46
Fwiw the United States is doing a lot of effective work to combat this. A lot of countries have large EEZs covering a lot of the pacific but have no navy to police it with. The last coast guard commandant, Adm. Fagan, intorduced bilateral law enforcement agreements with multiple pacific island countries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Bilateral_Maritime_Law_En...) to police their EEZs with US coast guard vessels (the fig leaf used to be you'd have one foreign captain and deputize the whole ship, but now there are 'no rider' agreements that basically is 'change the flag, don't have to change anyone aboard'). China is deterred, the fish are saved, sovereignty for independent states is safeguarded, and the United States secures the world again.

Anyway, she was yet another casualty of MAGA! She was forced out on Trump's first day because of DEI, presumably because she was the first woman to run a service. For now, the program still survives, both funding and personnel-wise (modulo a few hull-days spent running around the southern border and the... uh, gulf of ~america~ mexico?), but man.

To learn more, I'd listen to war on the rocks! They have great guests.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#47

Another year another DC China IUU "the worst" propaganda piece, except this time more stupid - already inflated esimate of PRC DWF fleet last year was 18000... now 32000 kek. It's hilarious to see PRC DWF inflation from 3000 in 2020 to 6000 to 18000 and now 32000 in 5 years. PRC ship building is incredible, but damn /s. PRC wild catch was like 12m in 2020... and 15m in 2024... but somehow catching that extra 3m requi…

I mean pollution is bad, regardless of who does it? China is also fairly unique with the brazenness that her (flagged) vessels violate other EEZ waters to fish.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#48
post #38

I find it interesting how China is so keen to develop EVs as a way to get away from oil dependency, yet other areas of their economy aren't treated with the same urgency.

it's for the dough, bro.

should be obv.

also, ever heard of the asian concept of "face"?

it exists at country level too, not just individual level.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#49

Another year another DC China IUU "the worst" propaganda piece, except this time more stupid - already inflated esimate of PRC DWF fleet last year was 18000... now 32000 kek. It's hilarious to see PRC DWF inflation from 3000 in 2020 to 6000 to 18000 and now 32000 in 5 years. PRC ship building is incredible, but damn /s. PRC wild catch was like 12m in 2020... and 15m in 2024... but somehow catching that extra 3m requi…

I mean pollution is bad, regardless of who does it? China is also fairly unique with the brazenness that her (flagged) vessels violate other EEZ waters to fish.

JP/SKR/TW all does it brazenly (i.e. pacific / south american EEZs), SKR/TW also with their share of slave labor. They just don't get reported on, or analysis will include them but MSM that inevitably regurgitates these "analysis" will downplay / leave them out.

And relative to other DWF / wild catch, PRC catches less per capita... so they're poluting less. See approaching 80% agraculture share. PRC basically the most sustainable seafood producer with more than 10m people. Scale it per capita, PRC isn't even in the same level as US partners who don't get the annual smear campaign.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article only talks about visible fishing activity. But China operates many “dark fleets” where many unregistered boats sail along registered boats. They are fishing way more than the 44% that is being reported. These fleets will no doubt destroy ecosystems beyond repair. https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/new-evidence-suggests-chin... https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-19/how-china-is-plunderi... https://time.com…

Thankfully with satellites and machine learning nothing is dark these days.

That is not true at all. A very small percentage of our oceans are comprehensively monitored. There is a reason why MH370 could not be located via satellite imaging. Tracking fleets of boats all over the planet is going to be very tricky.

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/08/how-data-can-heal-ou...

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