Taotasi tells Honolulu Advertiser that the Chinese fishing effort keeps growing

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — In an interview with the Honolulu Advertiser, the director of American Samoa’s Dept. of Marine & Wildlife Resources (DMWR), Taotasi Archie Soliai stated that the Chinese presence in the South Pacific is even larger than it appears on paper.

While American Samoa’s fishing fleet caught 5,000 metric tons of albacore tuna in 2007, today it barely brings in more than 1,000. As the catches have dwindled, so has the fleet, from once more than 50 vessels to now just 27.

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, along with fishermen and officials in the island territory, blame the decrease on a massive increase in Chinese-operated fishing vessels in the region. In 2007 there were about 100 Chinese-flagged vessels in the Pacific Island region, and today there are now more than 540 that are active in the waters around American Samoa.

China is the world’s largest consumer and exporter of seafood, and its massive state- subsidized fishing fleet — the world’s largest — has been accused of widespread overfishing around the globe.

“This is directly related to the increase in China’s fishing effort,” said Taotasi, the territory’s director of Marine & Wildlife Resources. He said that the Chinese presence is even larger than it appears on paper, with many Chinese companies registering vessels to Pacific Island countries, a practice known as using “flags of convenience.”

“They can do almost anything that they want to do without much accountability,” said Taotasi.

In 2020 the Coast Guard declared that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing — or IUU — had surpassed piracy as the No. 1 global security threat at sea.

In October of that year, then-White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien announced that the Coast Guard would beef up its presence in the region and launch a $5 million study to look at stationing a ship in Pago Pago and adding new ones in Guam in an effort to combat overfishing, particularly by China’s fleet.

“This will be quite an expansion of our U.S. Coast Guard capability in the Western Pacific,” O’Brien told reporters across the region in a conference call at the time. “This capability will allow us to expand opportunities to partner with like-minded nations in the region.”

But ultimately, while the Coast Guard has increased its presence and stepped up  operations in the region, the study concluded that American Samoa lacked the infrastructure to host a vessel.

American Samoan officials say that has left them exposed as the Chinese fleet continues making inroads in neighboring island countries.

(Source: Honolulu Advertiser)