Pingtan Marine Enterprise, China, is the sole ship owner. Owns or manages some 225 ships –More than the combined of the top ten multinational companies in Galicia– assigned to the frivolity of societies focused solely on deep-sea fishing in international waters. It receives subsidies from the Beijing Government – $19 million in 2021 – hunts sharks in the Galapagos protected area, and slavery allegations on board. If a sailor wants to go ashore after seven months at sea, he will be starved for three days as punishment.
The United States Department of the Treasury also points out that this is not an unofficial or undocumented series of irregularities. The same institution that proved all kinds of unlawfulness in Dalian Ocean Fishing, also the Chinese feeds expired food on board 13 months after leaving port. As of December 2022, there are only two official dossiers which are the tip of the iceberg of a Chinese fleet’s practices that will continue without warning in Europe. Fisheries Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius disagrees. And, as shipowners and governments have condemned to the end, the extractor in community waters will not do so when implementing a fisheries containment strategy.
Sinkevicius received a written question from Dutch EP MP Bert-Jan Ruissen, who questioned him about the Environmental Justice Foundation’s (EJF) scathing report against illegal fishing practices, the destruction of natural resources and the rights of Chinese assembly workers in Ghana. “Given the zero-tolerance defense of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing – it’s questionable -, Why didn’t China get a yellow card?”.
This is a sanction imposed by Ghana itself, with the European Commission warning States that do not contribute to or support illegal fishing. The commissioner, reached by FARO from the Prensa Ibérica group, answered unequivocally: “The yellow card is not the best course.” The head of European fisheries policy assures that “China has made progress, including updating its regulations on far-water fishing. […] or the development of rules on transhipments on the high seas”. The US Treasury sanction is dated December 9, 2022.
In this context, MEP Ruissen, Possible double measurement standard by Brussels, sanctioning countries, but ignoring the Government’s practices, whose irregularities are most documented. “Do you not agree with the Commission, seeing that there is no talk of China’s non-compliance while 27 countries have received yellow or red cards since 2012, including Ghana, which received a second yellow card in June 2021? Are double standards being enforced and as a result the credibility of the zero tolerance policy is undermined? “The Commission does not agree that double standards apply – Sinkevicius decides”.
According to the latest report of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI, global prestige), There are at least 183 Chinese-flagged vessels registered as illegal activityIn addition to the Asian country having a long-haul fleet of about 17,000 ships, many of the suspect ships use other countries’ flags and, while not officially listed as made in China, are eight times more than estimated. these.