China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide
58 comments
·June 29, 2025pen2l
ashoeafoot
Concrete pylons with blades?
fendy3002
just a concrete blocks is enough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7AnKcMVEio
ignore the marble sclupture, it's only a few of them deployed for attraction and attention.
blargthorwars
And it does so on seas that aren't even remotely close to China. They're looting the entire Pacific Ocean.
darth_avocado
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/6328528/investigation-chinese-fishing-fleet...
mensetmanusman
Thankfully with satellites and machine learning nothing is dark these days.
darth_avocado
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...
endianswap
They export tens of billions of dollars in seafood every year, why does it matter where they're fishing if they're selling it worldwide?
JumpCrisscross
> why does it matter where they're fishing if they're selling it worldwide?
Regulation. Chinese boats fish in ways we block our own boats from. Those exports thus represent a regulatory workaround, victim the oceans, and a tool with which buyers can demand reciprocal regulation.
fennecbutt
Who makes the profit? Duh.
savanaly
You might be right, but it's certainly not a "duh". Consumer surplus exists in addition to producer surplus.
vkou
Isn't it normal for countries to fish in seas that aren't remotely close to them?
Is there a single country in Asia that doesn't practice distant water fishing?
scubakid
I think the main concern is over IUU fishing, and China's fleet has been linked to that.
lvl155
[flagged]
cadamsdotcom
It's very hard to take your comment in good faith.
Societal expectations were very different back then. Should we also slam those trying to end modern slavery by mentioning slavers of the past?
doe9938
How convenient. Getting on top of the mountain and pulling the ladder behind you. If rich countries were willing to really help those less fortunate (especially counties that they themselves looted in the past), this argument would have a lot more weight.
Is the rest of the world supposed to stay poor and desperate forever? Especially considering that rich countries still suck massive amounts of resources (and turn a blind eye to local corruption), and provide popular emigration destination for talented people who leave their homeland instead of helping develop it?
lijok
Nuance is required. Would you impose a 2 Sea Bass over 42cm limit per person on the residents of North Sentinel Island?
It’s all a spectrum. One nation cannot leapfrog the rest in its advancements then demand the rest follow its new norms, unless they’re willing to put their money where their mouth is.
Jgrubb
Exactly
kingstnap
I wonder about engineering yourself a productive fishery instead of exploiting wild stocks.
Most of the ocean is practically a desert. The only productive places are near land, where deep water up wells and returns sunken nutrients back to the surface.
I'm sure we could study and engineer some sort of nutrient dumping and cycling scheme. I bet you could make vastly more food while leaving a lot of ocean alone.
iancmceachern
Totally, they do a lot of this, fish farming.
There are places famous for it, and there are other places like French Polynesia where they use existing atols as places to do it.
It's not easy, but it can be very productive.
reactordev
A lot of their species interests can’t be fish farmed. Some can but it’s not exactly economical to shark farm or squid farm. Mussels, shrimp/prons, clams, salmon, some tuna, trout, and smaller fish can be farmed effectively.
While China dominates the fisheries, Japan is still whaling. The oceanic deserts are getting worse every day.
deadfoxygrandpa
the bay between shenzhen and hong kong is basically a giant oyster farm which they say also helps clean up the water. so people do it with some stuff
profsummergig
FWIW, China also produces enormous (enormous) quantities of seafood from caged underwater oceanic farms. It's the future of fishing IMHO.
The rich, everywhere in the world, will continue to seek wild-caught though. (While they publicly rail against the poor eating wild-caught. Such is how the wheels turn.).
tedk-42
Yes, but I suspect they way they feed these fish farms (desired, commercially viable fish) is by catching large portions of other fish (which explains how they account for 44%), processing it (grinding, drying to pellets etc) and then selling it to the farmers.
andsoitis
> While they publicly rail against the poor eating wild-caught.
Example?
Nursie
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.
tedk-42
> 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.
abdullahkhalids
The solution to overfishing, over consumption of fossil fuels, over consumption of beef etc is all the same in the current system. Impose appropriate taxes that adequately capture the impact of the negative externalities.
Living in unsustainable ways is ... well not sustainable.
If people have liked to eat fish since the start, then maybe we should leave some for the next generations.
Bjartr
> 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.
Nursie
Sometimes things need to be addressed whether there’s an alternative or not, because they are damaging.
Onshore fish-farming is being developed. I don’t know enough about it to have any idea whether it can be made compatible with animal welfare or environmental responsibility.
But it also doesn’t matter. Sometimes you’re just going to need to stop wrecking the place.
IG_Semmelweiss
One particular fishing tactic by Chinese fisherboats is horrendous.
They will approach a protected ecosystem, which is thriving with fish like that of the galapagos islands, for example. They will hang out right at the limit of the maritime nautical border with the native country.
Then they will shut down naval GPS transponders (disabling of AIS - Automatic Identification System) and during the night, all at the same time, cross into the country's maritime space and quickly get out before its caught by the local patrols. [1][2]
This happens a lot with smaller countries which cannot fight back.
There are other techniques that haven't been yet discussed, like, altering vessel measurements (Changing draft and length to obscure activity, e.g., during transshipment or EEZ entry) , and meeting with refrigerated cargo ships to transfer catch which is likely illegal.
These are the only ways they can sustain a 44% of fishing worldwide. If they did this in their home turf, their waters would be empty of life
[1] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/pesca-ile...
[2] https://usa.oceana.org/press-releases/oceana-analysis-shows-...
jihadjihad
The scale of Chinese fishing is massive, along with the labor needs to process what is caught.
There was a story [0] that ran in the New Yorker a year ago that detailed how North Koreans are sent to Chinese seafood plants in forced labor.
hyruo
The 44% mentioned in the data is actually composed of a large number of small family-run fishing boats, whose actual catch volumes are very low.In fact, China’s offshore catch (2.3 million tons in 2023, accounting for only ~10% of the global total and declining for three consecutive years) is far lower than its domestic aquaculture output (58.1 million tons).
WillAdams
My grandfather lived in a time when commercial hunting was outlawed.
I worry that I live in a time when commercial fishing is not sufficiently regulated so that rather than being outlawed, it will simply become infeasible, with the attendant knock-on affects of countries which depend on the oceans for a significant portion of their protein.
There are now a greater tonnage of ships in the ocean than bony fish:
What will be the next marker to be dropped?
Makes one wish that we could manage something like to Hal Clement's "Raindrop":
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/939760.Music_of_Many_Sph...
dottjt
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.
cavisne
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.
dottjt
What I'm describing is much broader: Food security i.e. running out of fish to extract from the seas.
fuzztester
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.
JackYoustra
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.
barbazoo
The fact that so many people rely on eating other animals is ruining the planet.
MaxPock
What do you think fish eat ?
mensetmanusman
Tell that to the Eagles in this backyard eating chickens.
lijok
How so?
meowkit
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 problem is humans have rapidly expanded and want to consume more than nature can provide and restock. We have exceeded the capacity for people surviving off animal products.
Attempts to produce more animal products is one of the major drivers of climate change, alongside things like concrete.
msgodel
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.
wyre
Really? The oceans are being overfished due to dietary demands for fish.
maxglute
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.
chvid
Yes. It is higly manipulative. But people are licking it up.
It is kinda scary how effectively these Washington think tanks are manufacturing consent for a naval confrontation with China.
JackYoustra
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.
maxglute
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.
Bottom trawling in particular seems horrendous. Here is Attenborough narrating about the horrors of it and how it affects the ocean floor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXp3jo_uGOQ