Colombo, Oct 5 (NationPress) China's distant-water fishing fleet is a major contributor to environmental destruction and labor exploitation. If this trend persists, it will continue to devastate ecosystems, threaten food security, and violate human rights, according to a recent report.

A report from the Sri Lanka-based Daily Mirror highlights that China's dominance, with the world's largest distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet, has come at an increasingly unsustainable cost.

Currently, more than 16,000 active vessels are reported—far exceeding the government’s official limit of 3,000. China's DWF activities extend across nearly every oceanic region, operating with poor transparency, inadequate oversight, and increasing evidence of systemic labor and environmental abuses, according to the report.

The Daily Mirror also referenced a 2025 report by Oceana, which found that Chinese-flagged vessels accounted for 44 percent of all visible global industrial fishing activity between 2022 and 2024, logging over 110 million hours at sea.

Much of this activity targets resource-rich yet ecologically sensitive areas in the Pacific Islands, West Africa, and Latin America, already under stress from climate change and local overfishing.

China's widespread use of bottom trawlers, which devastate ocean floors and entire ecosystems, has sparked international backlash. Many of these trawlers operate under foreign flags to evade regulations and are linked to long-term habitat destruction, coral reef collapse, and excessive bycatch rates, the report states.

The report warns that the DWF model also jeopardizes global food security. Chinese vessels in various coastal African and Pacific nations harvest fish that could otherwise sustain local communities. Local artisanal fishermen are experiencing diminished catches and incomes as overfishing, particularly by Chinese fleets, depletes coastal stocks, as noted by SciDev.net.

Despite Chinese authorities asserting their fleet operates under 'strict regulation', the reality is a complex web of subsidies, loopholes, and insufficient enforcement. Fuel subsidies and generous financing enable Chinese operators to profit even from non-viable fisheries.

The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs is accused of consistently underreporting fleet size and neglecting to disclose human rights violations. While Beijing has pledged to reduce illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, these claims are not supported by adequate reforms or international collaboration, as the report emphasizes.

To counter this detrimental model, the Daily Mirror suggests that global institutions must enforce stricter port-state measures, demand transparency in vessel ownership, and impose conditions for market access based on verified labor and sustainability standards.

Countries importing Chinese-caught seafood, particularly the US and members of the European Union, are urged to implement accountability rules for importers regarding forced labor and IUU fishing.

The evidence is compelling: China's distant-water fishing fleet is a significant driver of environmental destruction and labor exploitation. This situation is not merely a result of poor oversight; the system is fundamentally flawed, rooted in subsidies and legitimized by weak governance.

As long as these fleets operate under current conditions, they will continue to wreak havoc on ecosystems, threaten food security, and violate human rights. If Beijing genuinely aims to be a responsible maritime power, it must radically reform its fishing policies—both in principle and in practice.