China may pretend that in its massive fishing operations near other countries, it is “only” trawling close to the edge of the internationally recognized Exclusive Economic Zones of those countries without crossing over. But the satellite-detected radio signals of intruding fishing vessels indicate that the vessels do cross EEZ boundary lines.
The Economist reports (“Keeping tabs on China’s murky maritime manoeuvres,” August 15, 2023):
In January 2021 a fleet of Chinese fishing vessels approached the coast of Oman, apparently searching for squid. According to the ships’ automatic identification transponders, they stayed just outside Oman’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which grants it control of fishing rights up to 200 nautical miles (370km) from its shores. But radio signals from the ships, detected by commercial satellites, told a different story. They indicated that the ships were operating within Oman’s EEZ in a suspected illegal raid on its valuable squid stocks.
That was an early demonstration of a new tool being used by America and its allies to help expose illegal or aggressive Chinese activity at sea. They are contracting private companies to provide governments across the Indo-Pacific region with near-real-time data, gathered from space, to help them monitor coastal waters and to use their limited naval and coastguard resources more effectively. . . .
One of the challenges for [countries trying to keep track of China’s intrusions] is that Chinese coastguard and fishing vessels help enforce maritime claims but often deactivate the Automatic Identification System (ais) transponders that broadcast their identity and location. At other times, Chinese ships transmit “spoofed” data which are inaccurate.
If ships are proven to have engaged in an illegal raid of valuable squid stocks, that it’s an illegal raid is not merely suspected.
The transponder-hidden trespassing is unsurprising if you know the standard operating procedure of the Chinese government. When dictator-in-chief Xi Jinping and other Chinazi panjandrums sit around the conference table to hash out tactics and strategy, the boundaries limiting their domestic and international conduct are not set by any international adjudication or principles of rights or respect for others but by how much they think they can get away with at the moment.
