Satellites and seafood: China keeps fishing fleet connected in disputed waters

1 of 6. A dinghy ferries people to fishing boats at a port in the city of Dongfang on the western side of China's palm-fringed island province of Hainan, June 18, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/John Ruwitch

Related News

• Battered and broke, Vietnam fishermen bear brunt of China row

Related Topics

• World »
• China »
• Aerospace & Defense »

(Reuters) - On China's southern Hainan island, a fishing boat captain shows a Reuters reporter around his aging vessel. He has one high-tech piece of kit, however: a satellite navigation system that gives him a direct link to the Chinese coastguard should he run into bad weather or a Philippine or Vietnamese patrol ship when he's fishing in the disputed South China Sea.
By the end of last year, China's homegrown Beidou satellite system had been installed on more than 50,000 Chinese fishing boats, according to official media. On Hainan, China's gateway to the South China Sea, boat captains have paid no more than 10 percent of the cost. The government has paid the rest.
It's a sign of China's growing financial support for its fishermen as they head deeper into Southeast Asian waters in search of new fishing grounds as stocks thin out closer to home.
Hainan authorities encourage fishermen to sail to disputed areas, the captain and several other fishermen told Reuters during interviews in the sleepy port of Tanmen. Government fuel subsidies make the trips possible, they added.
That has put Chinese fishing boats - from privately owned craft to commercial trawlers belonging to publicly listed companies - on the frontlines of one of Asia's flashpoints.
Most recently, they were a fixture around a Chinese oil rig positioned in disputed waters off Vietnam, where they jostled and collided with Vietnamese fishing boats for more than two months until China withdrew the drilling platform in mid-July.
Explanations for China's assertiveness in the South China Sea usually focus on the strategic significance of the waterway, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes each year, or Beijing's goal to increase its offshore oil and gas output.
Rarely mentioned is the importance of seafood to the Chinese diet, several experts said. A 2014 report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), for example, said China's per-capita fish consumption was 35.1 kg in 2010, nearly double the global average of 18.9 kg.
"Fish products are just so critical to China's way of life. I think this is something most people haven't factored into the equation when they've looked at these conflicts and disputes," said Alan Dupont, a professor of international security at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
"It's pretty clear that the Chinese fishing fleet is being encouraged to fish in disputed waters. I think that's now become policy as distinct from an opportunistic thing, and that the government is encouraging its fishing fleet to do this for geopolitical as well as economic and commercial reasons."./.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/27/us-southchinasea-china-fishing-insight-idUSKBN0FW0QP20140727