Water Wars Special: How IUU Fishing Increases the Risk of Conflict

USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) transits the Pacific Ocean on Jan. 15, 2021. (US Navy Photo by Petty Officer Second Class Casey S.) This month, the Biden administration made some early pronouncements on Chinese activity in the Taiwan Strait and reassured Japan that the U.S. is committed to its security. Japan signaled a more aggressive stance in the South China Sea, while China continued to test and grow its maritime capabilities.  Tensions in the Taiwan Strait The U.S. Navy finished 2020 with a New Year’s Eve transit through the Taiwan Strait, the 13th such transit taken in 2020. This transit occurred as the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy aircraft carrier Shandong conducted naval exercises around Hainan Island, which is the smallest and southernmost province in China. Shandong and its accompanying ships had sailed through the Taiwan Strait just days earlier on their way to the 10-day exercises near Hainan.  But Shandong was not the only mainland-Chinese military presence in the Taiwan Strait. On Jan. 23, eight People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) H-6K bombers and four J-16 fighter jets violated the Taiwanese Air Defense Identification Zone. Beijing has in recent months sent near-daily reconnaissance flights over southern Taiwan and the Taiwan-controlled (and Beijing-claimed) Pratas Islands (Mandarin: Dōngshā Qúndǎo), but the combination of mainland bombers and fighters represents a new escalation in pressure from Beijing. The U.S. State Department responded to Beijing’s incursion, noting that the U.S. “commitment to Taiwan is rock-solid” and urging China to cease its “attempts to intimidate its neighbors.” Notably, the de-facto Taiwanese ambassador to the United States was invited to attend the Biden-Harris presidential inauguration — the first time Taiwan was invited by the inauguration organizing committee since 1979. And on the same day as the PLAAF trespass, the U.S. Navy Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group entered the South China Sea “to ensure freedom of the seas, build partnerships that foster maritime security, and conduct a wide range of operations.” A few days later, on Jan. 25, the Chinese state-run newspaper Global Times published an editorial that denounced the State Department’s press release and drew equivalences between the PLAAF’s violations of Taiwan’s airspace and the U.S. carrier strike group’s operations in the South China Sea. The editorial further warned that if the Biden administration continues what it called “Mike Pompeo’s extreme operations [against China], the situation across the Taiwan Straits is doomed to deteriorate.” Still, the piece ended on a more diplomatic note: “The Biden administration has a very professional diplomatic team. Hopefully they can clarify the boundaries and importance of the US interests on the Taiwan question, and restore Washington’s strategic sobriety.” Japan Looks for Reassurance In one of its first diplomatic moves in Asia, the Biden administration confirmed that the mutual defense provisions in the Japan-U.S. Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security apply to the Senkaku Islands (Mandarin: Diàoyú Dǎo) in the East China Sea. The application of the treaty to these Japanese-administered islands was first affirmed by President Obama in 2014 and reaffirmed in 2017 by President Trump. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan expressed the United States’s opposition to any unilateral change in the status of the Senkakus, and both he and his Japanese counterpart, Shigeru Kitamura, agreed to work toward a “free and open Indo-Pacific” in concert with mechanisms like the “ Quad ,” which includes Australia and India. In addition to reconfirming its U.S. commitments, Japan and the United Kingdom have scheduled a February video conference between their respective foreign and defense ministers to discuss ways to increase security operations between the two island nations. This “two-plus-two” meeting is likely to include a discussion of the United Kingdom’s plan to send its Queen Elizabeth Carrier Strike Group to the Pacific for joint U.K.-Japanese and U.K.-U.S.-Japanese naval exercises. Additionally, Germany is considering sending a frigate to Japan this summer — another sign of strengthening naval ties between Japan and European nations. Japan also added its voice to the chorus of nations rejecting China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. On Jan. 21, the Japanese Mission to the United Nations presented the U.N. secretary-general a note verbale arguing that China’s claims violate the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. Japan criticized China for continuing to reject the ruling in Philippines v. China , the 2016 South China Sea Arbitration. Some analysts think that Japan sent this unusually aggressive communique to increase pressure on China in its East China Sea negotiations with Japan. With this note verbale, Japan joins a collection of nations—Australia, France, Germany, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, the United Kingdom and the United States—in pressuring China to accept the 2016 ruling. Importantly, however, Japan’s note verbale was less comprehensive than those of the United States and its allies: Japan focused only on China’s obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight around ocean features that “do not have territorial sea and airspace of their own,” rather than rejecting outright Beijing’s claims to historic sovereignty over South China Sea islands.  China Flexes Its Maritime Muscles The last month also provided a small window into China’s underwater drone operations. Late in December 2020, Indonesian fisherman discovered an underwater drone near Selayar Island in the Flores Sea. The drone that the fisherman recovered resembled a Chinese Sea Wing underwater glider, which can be used to gather ocean data essential to planning submarine operations. Then, during the week of Jan. 11, the Indonesian Coast Guard intercepted the Chinese survey ship Xiang Yang Hong 3 “running dark” near the Sunda Strait, meaning that the ship was not broadcasting its position over the automated information system as required. This interception, combined with the discovery of the underwater drone, suggests that China is serious about gathering intelligence in Indonesian waters, probably to have a better understanding of the underwater environment within the Sunda, Lombok and Malacca straits — the three gateways between the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. On Jan. 22, China passed its new Coast Guard Law, which authorizes its Coast Guard to “take all necessary measures, including the use of weapons, when national sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction are being illegally infringed upon by foreign organizations or individuals at sea.” This law also allows the Chinese Coast Guard — which is often used by the Chinese government to keep maritime confrontations below a military threshold — to destroy other countries’ structures located on Chinese-claimed islands and to create exclusion zones around those islands to temporarily prevent other vessels from entering. This new law is likely to continue to raise tensions and provoke further clashes between China and other South China Sea claimants. Water Wars Special: IUU Fishing and the Potential for Conflict Illegal, unreported and unregistered (IUU) fishing, a global issue that many experts attribute to large state subsidies for fisheries, is more than simply an environmental or economic concern. Such activity heightens the risk of conflict at sea.  Most notably, China’s expanding fishing fleet—called the distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet—has precipitated tensions around the world. In 2016, an Argentine naval vessel sank a Chinese fishing boat illegally trawling in its waters, and the Argentine Coast Guard seized another Chinese-flagged vessel in May 2020. The vessel had turned off its identification system, illegally entered the Argentine exclusive economic zone (EEZ) at night, and carried 300 tons of fish in its hold. Similar incidents have occurred in the East China Sea . A South Korean attempt to interdict Chinese IUU fishing turned deadly in 2016, and Seoul recently announced enhanced efforts to seize Chinese fishing vessels illegally operating within its EEZ. On Jan. 18, the World Trade Organization (WTO) reconvened negotiations for an agreement on fishing subsidies. Such a deal could stabilize global fish stocks, reduce IUU fishing and mitigate a potential source of maritime conflict. But an agreement is unlikely to come easily— geopolitical tensions and conflicting interests among major fishing powers have complicated subsidies negotiations since the 2001 Doha Round . Four years ago, the WTO set 2020 as the deadline for an agreement to eliminate subsidies that promote overcapacity and IUU fishing. Although negotiators failed to meet the 2020 target, WTO leadership remains optimistic that efforts will prove successful in 2021. However, in a brief for the Internat
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