Reporter's Notebook: China's Controversial Distant Fishing Fleet

The China in Africa Podcast

The presence of China's distant fishing fleet in African waters is increasingly becoming a contentious domestic political issues in a number of countries, particularly in West Africa. At a campaign rally in September, Ghanaian vice presidential candidate Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang told supporters that if elected this December her administration ban illegal Chinese fishing.

Similarly, the permitting process for Chinese trawlers has evolved into extended political struggles in Senegal, Liberia and Ghana among other countries that are becoming increasingly concerned about the role that China's distant fleet is playing in illegal and unsustainable fishing activities.

While environmentalists, fishing lobbies and politicians have all made their positions on the matter very clear, rarely do we hear a Chinese perspective on the issue. Lulu Ning Hui, a Brussels-based journalist for the Hong Kong news site The Initium, spent time aboard two Chinese fishing trawlers in the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina. She wrote about her experience in a story published last fall and joins Eric & Cobus to discuss what life is like aboard these controversial vessels.

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