Six Chinese fishing boats were discovered violating Vanuatu’s fisheries law on Wednesday during an inspection by local police aboard the first US Coast Guard boat to patrol the waters of the Pacific Islands nation.
Illegal Fishing
The infractions included failing to record the fish caught in logbooks. This marked the first time in several years that police could inspect Chinese boats operating in Vanuatu’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which allows China to fish in Vanuatu’s waters and then offload their catch in other countries.
One of the vessels found to have breached the law belonged to the Chinese state-owned company CNFC Overseas Fisheries, which operates a joint venture with the government of Vanuatu known as Sino-Van.
Yakar Silas, the principal monitoring, control, and surveillance officer with Vanuatu’s Fisheries Department, noted that penalty notices would be sent to several Chinese companies and their local agents in Vanuatu. Most violations were attributed to Chinese fishing fleets based overseas.
China Defends Move
The Chinese embassy countered these claims, asserting that the Chinese boats possessed fishing permits from the Vanuatu government and were operating legally. Sino-Van director Zhang Junwei defended the project, stating that Vanuatu’s PM Charlot Salwai supports it.
The US Coast Guard’s involvement in patrolling Vanuatu waters is noteworthy amid heightened geopolitical competition between the two superpowers for influence in the Pacific Islands region. The US Coast Guard cutter Harriet Lane recently patrolled Vanuatu waters, marking a significant move. China, as Vanuatu’s largest external creditor, has been involved in economic projects, including a joint venture with Vanuatu’s government a decade ago.
Chinese Illegal Fishing
This is not the first instance of Chinese vessels caught fishing illegally. In 2021, a Norway-based environmental watchdog reported that Chinese fishing boats were found to be exploring the waters in the northwest Indian Ocean region to illegally catch overfished tuna. The report noted that Chinese squid vessels have exploited gaps in fishing regulations in the Indian Ocean and documented how their presence in the area has increased six-fold since 2016.
In 2020, the Peruvian Navy said it has been monitoring a fleet of roughly 250 Chinese vessels right outside its EEZ that were previously seen fishing for giant squid close to the Galapagos islands off the coast of Ecuador.