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Shipping containers and gantry cranes are seen at a port in Lianyungang, in eastern China's Jiangsu Province. [AFP]
In the 21st century, illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is an existential threat to the global effort toward responsible governance and the sustainable development of fisheries. Both the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union's Agenda 2063 explicitly call for urgent global action to end IUU. Countries such as China, India, Indonesia, and Japan, along with other island and coastal nations, which are the world's largest consumers of fish, bear the greatest responsibility to curb IUU and advance global and continental strategies.
With this in mind, China, one of the largest consumers of fish, has been actively participating in global marine fisheries governance, protecting marine fishery resources, and safeguarding the international fisheries order.
Strategically, China has joined eight regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs), including the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO), the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC), and the Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement (SIOFA). Through these RFMOs, China circulates the published list of IUU fishing vessels to all its domestic ports and denies the listed vessels access to Chinese ports. Also, China does not allow such vessels to engage in unloading, replenishment, or refuelling at Chinese ports.
