U.S. Coast Guard Boards Chinese Boats In Ecuador

This summer, as China fired missiles into the sea off Taiwan to protest House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island, a much different kind of geopolitical standoff was taking shape in another corner of the Pacific Ocean, Joshua Goodman and Joe McDonald reported for Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: The Coast Guard’s unprecedented voyage was prompted by growing alarm from activists and governments in Latin America over the activities of China’s distant water fishing fleet.

Thousands of miles away, a US Coast Guard cutter sailed up to a fleet of several hundred Chinese squid-fishing boats not far from Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands. Its mission: Inspect the vessels for signs of illegal, unreported, or unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Boarding ships is a perfectly legal if little-used tool available to any country as part of the effort to protect the oceans’ threatened fish stocks.

Chile, New Zealand, and the US are stepping up patrols even as Argentina actually destroyed a Chinese fishing boat that returned fire, sending its crew to the bottom of the sea.

The captains of several fishing boats did something unexpected. Three vessels sped away, one turning aggressively 90 degrees toward the Coast Guard cutter James, forcing the US vessel to take evasive action.

“For the most part they wanted to avoid us,” said Coast Guard Lt. Hunter Stowes, the highest-ranking law enforcement officer on the James.

“But we were able to maneuver effectively so that we were safe the entire time.” The US Coast Guard was able to board two of the boats on Aug. 4, 2022 and confirmed the illegal activities of the Chinese fishing vessels that had been poaching in Ecuador’s waters.

The Coast Guard’s unprecedented voyage was prompted by growing alarm from activists and governments in Latin America over the activities of China’s distant water fishing fleet, the world’s largest, at 3,000 boats.

Since 2009, the number of Chinese-flagged vessels spotted fishing in the south Pacific, sometimes for months at a time, has surged eightfold, to 476 last year.

Meanwhile, the size of its squid catch has grown from 70,000 tons to 422,000 — a level of fishing that some scientists fear is unsustainable even for a resilient species. China claims it opposes IUU but its fisheries fleet is notorious for poaching and violating the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Asian and Latin American nations.

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