Promising to provide “tangible benefits” to the nations of the Indo-Pacific region, Quad leaders have launched a maritime surveillance plan, which analysts say is the most significant move so far to counter China.
Quad, an informal alliance of Japan, the United States, India and Australia, says the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness Partnership (IPMDA) will help Pacific islands and countries in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean track down other illegal fish. illegal activities in their waters in real time. Although Quad did not mention China by name, the initiative aims to address long-standing complaints from countries in the region about illegal fishing by Chinese boats in their exclusive economic zones, as well as encroachment by Chinese naval ships in disputed South China Sea .
Quad did not provide details of the initiative, but an unnamed US official told Britain’s Financial Times that the group plans to fund commercial tracking services to provide maritime intelligence to Indo-Pacific countries for free.
By monitoring radio frequencies and radar signals, the initiative will also help countries track boats, even when trying to avoid detection by turning off their transponders, known as automatic information systems (AIS). This information will then be shared in an existing network of regional monitoring centers based in India, Singapore, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.
Greg Pauling, a Southeast Asia Fellow at the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, described the IPMDA as “ambitious” and said it “could be extremely useful” for developing countries in the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. . “This effort could seriously reduce costs and increase opportunities to monitor illegal fishing and the behavior of Chinese maritime militias,” he said.
With about 3,000 ships, China’s remote water fleet is the largest in the world.
Highly subsidized by the Chinese government, the fleet is ranked at the bottom of the Global Illegal Fishing Index, which tracks illegal, illegal and unregulated fishing around the world.
Chinese vessels have been accused of fishing without licenses at least 237 times between 2015 and 2019, while several Chinese boats have been detained for illegal fishing or encroachment on Vanuatu, Palau, Malaysia and South Korea in recent years. Hundreds of Chinese squid have also been found fishing for squid with transponders off in North Korean waters.
In addition to illegal fishing, the Chinese navy has also been accused of targeting endangered and protected marine life in the world’s oceans, including sharks, seals and dolphins, according to the UK-based Foundation for Environmental Justice.
Beijing has denied allegations of illegal fishing, saying it “strictly complies” with international regulations. She also says she has tightened surveillance of her remote water fleet and imposed voluntary fishing moratoriums to conserve resources, including in the northern Indian Ocean.
“Explicitly anti-China”
However, regional concerns about China’s maritime behavior do not end with illegal fishing.
Experts also say China is using its fishing vessels as a paramilitary fleet in the resource-rich South China Sea. Beijing claims almost the entire waterway, and fishing vessels played a key role in capturing disputed territories, including the 1974 Paracel Islands of Vietnam and the Mischief and Scarborough Shoal Reefs of the Philippines in 1995 and 2012.
In May last year, Manila reiterated its concern over what it called “the continued deployment, long-term presence and illegal activities of Chinese maritime assets and fishing vessels” in the vicinity of Titu Island, also known as Pag-Asa Islands. It says he spotted about 287 boats moored in the area.
Beijing has said “there are no Chinese naval militias, as they say” and that fishing vessels are simply hiding from bad weather. But the United States said boats have roamed the area for months in increasing numbers, despite the weather, while Beijing critics said they feared the catch could be part of its grand design to advance a bit. less in the disputed waters.
Indonesian navy has previously sunk foreign ships, including Chinese boats, caught illegally in Indonesian waters. [File: Fiqman Sunandar/Antara Foto via Reuters]
China’s maritime behavior is a “concern not only for the Quad but also for the countries of Southeast Asia,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King’s College London. “So I expect a lot of countries to join [the IPMDA]”
“In my opinion, this is the first explicitly anti-Chinese step that Quad has taken because it is clearly aimed at China,” Pardo said, noting that Quad’s biggest initiative to date has been in delivering vaccines against COVID-19. “But we’ll have to see how effective it is.”
In Beijing, news of Quad’s latest move has sparked contempt and concern.
Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, told reporters that China was “actively fulfilling its obligations under relevant international law” and said that “building small cliques and inciting bloc confrontation is a real threat to a peaceful, stable and joint maritime order.” “.
Meanwhile, a publication in the Communist-owned tabloid Global Times called the IPMDA “ridiculous.”
“It seems like a joke that Quad’s first major security action is aimed at Chinese fishing boats,” wrote Hu Bo, director of the South China Strategic Situation Initiative. The initiative is only aimed at condemning China, he said, and depriving it of the right to use the sea peacefully.
“The move to Chinese fishing vessels is likely to be just an ‘appetizer’, Chinese government and coast guard ships, as well as warships, will also become the next targets under surveillance. This is possible for the wider Quad surveillance system, “he added.
Others said the IPMDA was likely to escalate tensions between China and the Quad.
“The US-led Maritime Awareness Partnership (IMPDA) is a vague justification for setting up a monitoring network to criticize the Chinese fishing industry,” Einar Tangen, a Beijing-based analyst, told Al Jazeera.
“This will serve as another irritant in deteriorating international relations.
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