“China is the only SCS coastal state that has imposed an annual five-months fishing moratorium in the SCS for its fishing fleet from May to September”
FOLLOWING the revival of the US-Philippine “assertive transparency” or “water cannon me” campaign, Senators of the 19th Congress of the Philippines are getting exercised over China’s promulgation of its new regulations on administrative law-enforcement procedures of its Coast Guard agencies (called for short by the Chinese media as the “Procedures”) perceiving it as targeting of Filipino fishermen venturing into China’s claim territorial waters.
China’s Global Times, one of the major Communist Party of China English newspapers had this to say about the Philippine reaction to the Procedures:
“Chinese experts on Saturday slammed the interpretation, saying that these Filipino media outlets deliberately sensationalized and distorted the issue, maliciously slandered the Procedures, exposing ulterior motives and a guilty conscience. The promulgation of the Procedures is aimed at maintaining the order of normal economic activities at sea, and fishermen from China and other countries are treated equally before the regulations.”
It is both relevant and imperative to cite Paragraph 809 of the Arbitration Award itself in connection with this Procedure in relation to the rights of other coastal states’ fishermen enjoying the “traditional fishing grounds” in some of the common but disputed areas like the Scarborough Shoal:
“809. The Tribunal notes, however, that traditional fishing rights are not absolute or impervious to regulation. Indeed, the careful regulation of traditional fishing may be necessary for conservation and to restrict environmentally harmful practices. Customary international law, in this respect, does not restrict the coastal State from reasonable regulation (a principle recognized with respect to treaty-based fishing rights in North Atlantic Coast Fisheries 860).
Nor would it prevent the coastal State from assessing the scope of traditional fishing to determine, in good faith, the threshold of scale and technological development beyond which it would no longer accept that fishing by foreign nationals is traditional in nature.”
The Chinese Coast Guard is empowered, with the largest Coast Guard fleet in the world, legally to take on the full responsibility to maintain order at sea for all stakeholders.
For example, protection of Scarborough Shoal’s lagoon fish sanctuary, fish breeding ground for the entire South China Sea.
The Philippines’ Tarriela has been pushing Filipino fishermen to breach and fish inside risking breeding grounds to pursue the “assertive transparency” of ex-USAF Col. Raymond Powell.
(Editor’s Note: Commodore Jay Tarriela, the Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, has emphasized the importance of information as a tool to deter China’s illegal reclamation activities in the WPS. , called on Filipinos to speak up, affirming the nation’s sovereignty and economic rights to the West Philippine Sea).
No other South China Sea coastal state has the capacity of China to manage from the challenges of maintaining the ideal security, productivity and environmental conditions of the Common heritage as China.
Be it from the threatening gunboat diplomacy of the Western Powers led by the US constituting the “Pivot to Asia” or the economic threat of impoverished coastal states’ fishermen in uncontrolled dynamite, cyanide and overfishing malpractices.
China is the only SCS coastal state that has imposed an annual five-months fishing moratorium in the SCS for its fishing fleet from May to September; and the same is not imposed on the Vietnamese and Philippine fishing fleet.
While the US propaganda outlets like the Asia Maritime Transparency Institute and US Filipino proxies like Tarriela slander China over “corals destruction,” the truth is since 2009, Chinese environmentalists have planted 120,000 to 150,000 corals, covering over 200,000 square meters of seabed of the SCS.
While Tarriela and company constantly berate China over media alleging cyanide fishing by Chinese fishermen, a 2003 World Wildlife Fund report singles out the Philippines reporting, ”Cyanide fishing began in the 1960s in the Philippines to supply the international aquarium trade. But since the early 1980s, a much bigger business has emerged: supplying live reef fish for the restaurants…”
A 2018 New York Times reports says it all, “In the Philippines, dynamite fishing decimates Entire Oceans.”
The Procedure is also about a whole gamut of issues encompassing 16 chapters and 281 clauses.
It includes principle, jurisdiction, supervision, inspection, case filing, evidence collection, which will help stakeholders around the SCS to appreciate the effort to put order into the conduct of all parties in the SCS engagement, hence promote fairness, goodwill and peaceful co-existence while strategic matters are ironed out through dialogue. (rpkapunan@gmail.com)