Thayer Consultancy Background Brief:

ABN # 65 648 097 123

Impact of China’s Annual
Fishing Ban on Vietnam
August 3, 2023

We are writing a report assessing China’s annual fishing ban in the South China. We
request your insight into the following four questions.
Q1. Since 1999, China has imposed an annual unilateral fishing ban in the South China
Sea that cuts across disputed maritime zone. How easy has it been for China to enforce
this ban?
ANSWER: China’s annual fishing ban covers an enormous area of the South China Sea;
it includes all waters above 12 degrees north latitude. This covers the Paracels Islands
and extends down to the northern waters of the Spratly Islands.
There are two sides of the enforcement coin. The first side is China’s deployment of
hundreds of China Coast Guard and other vessels to monitor activity in known fishing
grounds and to enforce the fishing ban.
The other side of the coin is self-restraint on the part of fishermen residing in littoral
states.
At the end of last year, China issued new regulations imposing very heavy fines of up
to tens of thousands of U.S. dollars on foreign vessels caught fishing in waters under
China’s claimed jurisdiction.
In recent years, including this year, Vietnam and the Philippines have protested
China’s ban. President Marcos Jr. has backed the right of 376,000 Filipino fishermen
to fish in the West Philippines Seas. Vietnam has encouraged its fishermen to
disregard China’s ban.
China is most successful in keeping its own fishermen at home but still has to contend
with illegal Chinese fishers. Only a few incidents of Chinese harassment and seizure of
foreign vessels during the period of the ban are reported. Precise data is lacking on
the size and scope of foreign vessels fishing in waters above 12 degrees north latitude
during May-August.
Q2. How has Vietnam’s fisheries industry been impacted by this?
ANSWER: China’s 1999 fishing ban was originally drawn up to protect fish during the
spawning season. The fish stock in the South China Sea above 12 degrees north
latitude have been overfished and depleted. This includes fishing near coastlines and
 2

in traditional fishing grounds. This is the main factor affecting Vietnam’s fishing
industry, not China’s annual ban.
Q3. One fisheries expert has said the ban is so unsuccessful because the reason behind
it has less to do with resource management and more to do with security concerns.
Do you share this opinion? Why/Why not?
ANSWER: China’s ban has been more successful in curtailing the activities of Chinese
fishermen in the Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, East China Sea and South China Sea. After
China issued its first ban in 1999, China claimed that foreign fishing vessels took
advantage and began intruding into areas frequented by Chinese fishers.
After 2009, when China first officially published its nine-dash line claim to the South
China Sea, the two issues of fisheries conservation and assertion of sovereign rights
became intertwined. This intensified after the 2016 Arbitral Tribunal Award in favour
of the Philippines against China.
In either case, the China Coast Guard and other agencies have a mammoth task
enforcing the fishing ban and China’s claims to sovereign jurisdiction across such an
expanse of water. The fishing ban lasts for three months, while China’s claims to
sovereign jurisdiction are open ended – 24/7 twelve months every year.
4. What would be the best way to deal with this issue since it appears to be a multi-
faceted problem?
ANSWER: The most logical solution would be for all littoral states to adhere to the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to which they are
signatories. UNCLOS imposes a duty to cooperate to preserve the marine environment
in a semi-enclosed sea such as the South China Sea.
Cooperation to preserve the marine environment should be a multilateral affair
involving all stakeholders and not a unilateral affair by China. Littoral states should
agree on common measures, based on science, to preserve and protect the marine
environment. Littoral states also should agree on common protocols to enforce
agreed common measures against illegal action by fishermen from all countries that
operate in the South China Sea.

Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, “Impact of China’s Annual Fishing Ban on

Vietnam,” Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, August 3, 2023. All background briefs
are posted on Scribd.com (search for Thayer). To remove yourself from the mailing list
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Thayer Consultancy provides political analysis of current regional security issues and
other research support to selected clients. Thayer Consultancy was officially
registered as a small business in Australia in 2002.