Control from Within: China’s Hidden Fleet

The country is not just dominating the high seas. It has also taken over domestic waters of many global south nations.

Today, we released a fourth installment in our series about human rights and environmental concerns tied to the global seafood supply chain. The series focuses especially on China because it is not only the biggest player in the world’s seafood industry but also the largest purveyor of illegal fishing. 

We previously reported on China’s ubiquity in international waters and the pervasiveness of state-sponsored forced labor within its processing plants, many of which supply the U.S., Canada, the EU, Japan and South Korea. But China is not only the Superpower of Seafood across the high seas and on land. It’s also, in a more hidden way, exerting unprecedented control over near-shore waters, especially those of global south countries. 

In recent years, from South America to Africa to the far Pacific, China has been buying its way into restricted national fishing grounds, primarily using a process known as “flagging in.” This method typically involves the use of business partnerships to register foreign ships under the flag of another country, thereby allowing those vessels to fish in that country’s territorial waters. 

The Chinese fleet has long targeted other countries’ waters. Typically that meant parking in international waters along sea borders, then running incursions across the line into domestic waters. But China has more recently taken a “softer” approach, gaining control from the inside by paying to flag in their ships so they can fish in domestic waters. Subtler than simply entering foreign coastal areas to fish illegally, the tactic – which is often legal – is less likely to result in political clashes, bad press, or sunken vessels. 

Part of the reporting for this investigation was conducted by two fellows of the Outlaw Ocean Institute, Pete McKenzie and Milko Schvartzman in Argentina. The story, which took a year to produce, is running in over two dozen news outlets in 22 countries and 10 languages, thanks to an array of global publishing partners. 

The current installment of the OO investigation reveals for the first time the true size of this hidden fleet as well as the extent of the fleet’s illegal behavior, its concentration in certain foreign waters, and the amount of seafood coming from these ships that winds up in European and American markets. It also explains why the world should care.