China, Africa, and Distant Water Fishing

The Environmental Security Program at Stimson published on 1 November 2019 a report titled "Shining a Light: The Need for Transparency across Distant Water Fishing."

China has the world's largest distant water fishing fleet. From 2015 to 2017, it accounted for about 38 percent of all distant water fishing. Coastal waters off West African and Indian Ocean countries are the location of much of this fishing, which increasingly constitutes illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Based on case studies in waters off Mozambique and Seychelles, Asian countries (China, Taiwan, and South Korea) appear to be the major cause of IUU fishing.