The South Korean authorities seized a pair of Chinese vessels suspected of illegal fishing and vowed to step up their crackdown in nearby waters. The fishing crews were suspected of violating South Korea’s maritime rights in its exclusive economic zone on October 3.
The fishing vessels had intruded about 7.5 miles into restricted waters about 50 miles southwest of Socheong Island, South Korea’s coast guard said.
Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing poses a major threat to ecosystems and lawful fishers’ livelihoods around the world.
China’s commercial fishing fleet, the world’s largest, with over half a million vessels, frequently sparks controversy over its involvement in such operations.
Socheong Island, administered by Incheon Metropolitan City’s Ongjin County, is a small island situated near the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas.
One of the 40 to 50-ton Chinese ships fled the scene quickly, Kyeonggi Ilbo cited the coast guard as saying. The other was still lashed to nine other boats.
Chinese fishermen are known to use this tactic, dubbed the “linked strategy” by Seoul’s coast guard, to avoid capture. As law enforcement boards one of the vessels, crew members seek to escape by moving from one boat to another before severing the rope tethering the final boat in the row and setting sail.
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One coast guard official told Kyeonggi Ilbo there is typically a spike in illegal Chinese fishing operations in the autumn months. He vowed the agency would “crack down strongly to maintain fishing order.”
Another 28 Chinese vessels were ejected from nearby waters, according to the coast guard, which also confiscated a large haul of small fish from one of the boats.
Eight crew members, including the two ships’ captains, are under investigation. The coast guard told the news outlet it would weigh slapping a 300 million won ($223,000) fine on the vessels, or transferring them to a specialized coast guard dock in Incheon.
The news follows a similar incident last month that saw four Chinese fishing boats seized near Daecheong, another South Korean island in the area. During the coast guard’s investigation, one Chinese sailor went missing and was presumed to have fallen overboard, per local media.
The Korea Oceanographic Data Center and Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
“China exercises the right to develop and use the fisheries resources on the high seas in accordance with relevant international law including the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Seas,” the Chinese embassy in the U.S. told Newsweek when asked earlier this year about Chinese ships accused of illegally deploying nets in South Korea’s EEZ.
Legislation aims to safeguard South Korea’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), including the regulation of foreign vessels and prevention of illegal fishing.
An EEZ extends 200 nautical miles (230 miles) from a country’s coastline. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, claimant states have the sole right to the natural resources within their maritime zones.
