China has the largest fishing fleet in the world, operating not only in China's waters, but across the globe.
China is frequently in the news in relation to illegal fishing activities. In the last year alone, Chinese fishers and fishing boats have been apprehended or monitored engaging in illegal activities in the waters of many countries, including Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and South Africa. In the Philippines alone, the authorities say they have arrested almost 600 Chinese nationals for poaching in the last nine years. Greenpeace and EJF have tracked illegally operating Chinese flagged trawlers from the waters around Guinea to landing their catches in the Canary Islands, the Philippine authorities have arrested Chinese fishers for fishing in the prohibited waters of the Tubbataha Reef National Marine Park, and Chinese companies have been implicated in organised crime rings involving illegal fishing.
In addition, efforts to crack down on the shark fin trade have focused very much on China, the main market for the highly prized fins which are used in shark fin soup.
China consumes 30% of the catch from the world's commercial fisheries, and 10% of that is turned into feed for China's vast aquaculture industry, which raises 70% of the world's total production of farmed fish.