The Chinese Pacific: A brief historical introduction

Abstract

The open ocean fisheries of Pacific Island nations contain some of the richest fisheries in the world. These fisheries are becoming more valuable each year as other ocean areas have become increasingly overfished to the point of collapse, most noticeably in the North Atlantic. With limited maritime surveillance and policing capacity, and with domestic fishing fleets dwarfed by those of Distant Water Fishing Nations (DWFN) from wealth nations on the Pacific Rim, small Pacific Island nations are forced to rely on renting out access rights to their fisheries to DWFN in which adherence to Pacific Island nation harvesting regulations is largely based on voluntary compliance. Voluntary conservation regimes seeking to persuade fishers that it is in their best long-term interests to comply are the only mechanism able to be applied at present to Pacific pelagic fisheries. The last decade has revealed mounting scientific evidence that this regime is not working, as once prolific fisheries decline substantially. China (the People's Republic of China) is one of the DWFN. China also has the capacity to act as a circuit breaker to redefine a more mutually beneficial and sustainable partnership with Pacific Island nations instead of continuation of existing unsustainable fishery practices and relationships.