[rgbrenner]

Read that article again closer, paying attention to separate the examples of illegal behavior from simply fishing.

"Much of what China does, however, is legal — or, on the open seas at least, largely unregulated." -- quote from your link.

Fishing "right up to the exclusive economic zone", means you're in international waters and can fish freely. They continue their activities because there are no legal means to stop their behavior. It's completely legal to fish in international waters.. just as it's legal for the US military to conduct freedom of movement operations in international waters. Countries can complain, but it doesn't give them the right to stop the behavior.

That's the problem.

[galdosdi]

Aren't there international treaties regulating fishing in international waters? I know they exist but not sure if they're weak and vague. That is what we need but not realistic to happen in today's geopolitical climate

[maxglute]

High seas is global commons. Any meaningful regulation / quota for potential enforcement is going to be on per capita basis (like emissions), in which case PRC significantly _underfishes_ relative to other top IUU violators. PRC would need to have distant fishing fleet of 60,000-120,000, or 20-40x times larger than current (3000-6000) to match per capita fleet of Taiwan (2000). Even if you take high end estimate of PRC DWF at 16000 that motivated actors use to bundle PRC fishing in their near shores (east/south seas, most of which are maritime militia that doesn't actually fish), they would still be "entitled" to 4x current fleet size. The reality is PRC has 20% of worlds population and limited EEZs so they're going to have to fish more in high seas / international waters for consumption and commerce. Unless one thinks PRC citizens aren't entitled to seafood or PRC fishers aren't entitled to a living.

Top fishing countries aren't going to agree to that (most of whom are US allies that media doesn't report on despite having comparable suspicious activities in same distant regions PRC operates in). The only reason PRC fishing got media play / propaganda push in the last few years is US wanted to beef up influence of pacific nations playing up PRC 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 fishing industry before PRC would even need to make any cuts. Someone else pointed out the SUV analogy when it comes to global warmning which is apt.

E: some embarassing math mistakes

[coredog64]

My recollection of how this works in the Pacific is that you won’t be eligible to buy fishing days in an EEZ if you do this.