China’s looming security deal with the Solomon Islands is about much more than the simple expansion of its military footprint. A key plank in Beijing’s strategic goals is food security. In terms of the Pacific, that means fish.
In 2013 Chinese leader Xi Jinping emboldened Chinese fishermen to “build bigger ships and venture even farther and catch bigger fish”, leading to the accelerated expansion of the country’s global fishing fleet.
The global seafood industry has more than quadrupled in the past 50 years. China consumes between 35-45% of the world’s seafood according to various estimates.
China’s demand has been forecast to triple between 2020 and 2030 due to rising demand for protein and a domestic focus on seafood as the source for this.
The country is leading the damaging global trend of distant-water fishing (DWF) that too often takes place in the territorial waters of low-income, defence-poor nations, such as Australia’s neighbours in South-East Asia and most especially the South Pacific.
The 14 sovereign nations and seven territories of the South Pacific have a combined population of less than 13 million people and account for more than 15% of the world’s surface. Only 4km separate Australia’s Boigu Island in the Torres Strait and Papua New Guinea, although it is 150km between the mainlands of the two countries. Approximately 2000km separates Australia and Vanuatu.
In recent years, China has inked major deals to build ports for fishing with both those nations, first in 2018 in Vanuatu and then in late 2020 in Daru, the Papua New Guinea town closest to Australia.
China is not the only country engaged in industrial-scale DWF but it is by far the biggest (Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Russia are the next largest offenders in that order).
The People’s Republic of China’s fleet is the world’s most extensive: 2701 in 2019 according to official government numbers. But the London-based Overseas Development Institute estimates that China has 17,000 vessels deployed in DWF operations. In comparison, in 1985, its very first distant-water fleet was comprised of 13 fishing boats.
DWF is closely associated with unsustainable levels of fishing and so-called illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities. Unsurprisingly China is also the major player in this arena, accounting for as much as one-third of the world’s annual catch.
China’s activities — and other DWF — are doing untold damage to the world’s fish stocks and are major contributors to the destruction of marine ecosystems, which in turn is a major contributor to climate change. In 2018, the United Nations noted that 90% of the world’s fishing grounds were depleted.
Fish stocks in the South China Sea — many of its waters the subject of disputes between China and its South-East Asian neighbours — are already so depleted that now the Chinese DWF is looking farther afield, including in Australian waters which are already being targeted by Indonesian fleets and others.
China is building a string of DWF bases on its coastline, including in Fujian, Shandong, and Zhejiang provinces. The latest is a US$64 million facility in the city of Zhuhai that neighbours Macau, which is to be completed in 2024. It is being built by Zhuhai East Port Xing Ocean Fishing Co., a fishing firm with vessels in Vanuatu — a Pacific nation that has drawn closer to China in recent years.
Chinese fishing vessels regularly encroach on Australian waters in what is known as the “grey zone”.
Australia is at least alive to the problem in the Pacific and is a long-standing supporter of sustainable Pacific fisheries, as well as an active member of, and donor to, the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency ($5 million annually) and the Pacific Community ($2.4 million annually).
“Australia is also implementing additional programs to help our regional partners tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, including coordinated engagement under Australia’s $2 billion Pacific Maritime Security Program,” according to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Australia is actively working with Pacific nations to extend its official reach into the region’s vast fishing grounds. But China appears, as with the Solomon Islands deal, to be a step ahead.
At a meeting of the first China-Pacific Island Countries Fishery Cooperation and Development Forum, held in Guangzhou on Dec 8, 2021, Ma Youxiang, the vice minister of fisheries at China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said China stood ready to cooperate on finding solutions to problems related to IUU fishing, proposing the establishment of an “intergovernmental multilateral fishery consultation mechanism”.
To be fair, China leads the world in aquaculture, accounting for 58% of the world’s output. But its demand for seafood is a key driver behind its growing presence in the Pacific and elsewhere in the region.
“Australia is actively working with Pacific nations” – but not consistently. Morrison’s attitude of ignoring Pacific nations’ needs just sends them straight into the arms of China. Every time Australia (or other Western nations) close up shop on outreach services in different parts of the world, China is waiting. It’s not only looking for direct access to resources but supporting votes in the UN and other international forums.
Agree, going back to the time of Abbott, neglect through economic ideology and climate science denial.
The Solomon’s tuna school is very much depleted and the coral has been bleached and so reef fish are on the dying out stakes.
It will be interesting if they start large scale fishing down water from the old Ok Tedi mine. as the fish were found to have heavy metals in concentration hazardous to health (according to the samples sent to the CSIRO), the small sharks had 1000 times the mercury levels deemed ‘safe’ if consumed once per month. .
Which leaves poaching in economic zones of Australia and Vanuatu. Good luck with poaching in Australia’s waters, our sea going trawlers carry high powered rifles (licensed for large sharks in the nets). Perhaps we should offer some assistance to Vanuatu.
Our government has been negligent and lazy regarding being a friend of our Pacific neighbours. These are the same people who fed our troops and hid them from the Japanese during WW11.
I do realize that the reason Smirko doesn’t think he actually has do anything is because “god” will do as he wishes.
I think ‘god’ accidentally picked a tone deaf lazy man for the wrong job.
If our other resources are anything to go off, expect our fish stocks to be plundered one way or another.
I must say that the interim trade deal with India included Crayfish, i was surprised that Smirko whilst in the kneeling position didn’t offer our Great Barrier Reef as an incentive, after all Joh was all for drilling for oil in the southern reef.
As for our population, well Smirko and all his mates from the Clown Car have demonstrated how low they will go, to find a market for our food products, now that the EU and the UK require us to actually do something about our Greenhouse gases, not just give speeches.
Yes, hawking our wares around the bargin basement of Asia and allowing anyone “qualified” in India to work in Australia without any assessment of their skills sounds fine to me.
Thanks Michael for your broadening oversight of pending South Pacific disruption. Whereby you record “Fourteen Sovereign Nations and Seven Territories . . . ” are spread across South Pacific and . . . their land and sea rights account for more than 15% of world surface.”
Australia often refers to South Pacific as our ‘back yard’. Not a claim I feel at all comfortable with. Even so, proximity, does allow comment? As does a ‘claim’ carry responsibilities. China’s need as you say, is to feed it’s peoples. But South Pacific nations/territories have primacy. They are the lead voices that must be respected.
Emerging challenges are enormous. Not the least being ecological. Oceanic warming, species relocating, diminishing. Seeking new habitats as existing food sources fail.
Survival contests already multiplying. Chinese need for food intrinsic to, with, how other nations view, conclude, motivation. Australian perception is more political and focussed upon potentiality of a military outcome? One most worrying issue is how the natural world has, is, accelerating humanity’s capacity to respond . . . in time? And not be diverted by less critical demands with far less important outcomes?
Bad enough but not quite as nauseating as references “our Pacific Femily”
True.
Incidentally, the Taiwanese have been plundering fish stocks in the Pacific (eg the New Hebrides/Vanuatu) for decades -catching and processing and exporting while the locals were left with imported canned Mackerel
The Japanese and American tuna boats were doing that in the Solomon’s in the early 80’s.
Australia loaned them a fully crewed patrol boat, which was fast enough to catch them.
They tied up the poachers boats, took their catch and sold it, took their fuel and used it and threatened to auction the vessels in Honiara.
Both nations signed fishing contracts with the Solomon Islands and they got their boats back.
Now, that is what I call being a friend to a neighbour.