A new brain-trust of China’s top fisheries researchers has vowed to transform the vast but politically-sensitive South China Sea into a research and development zone, with the aim of sovling China’s seafood woes.
The South China Sea Science, Technology, and Innovation Alliance, formed recently in the southerly city of Sanya, brings the country’s prestigious Academy of Fisheries and top fisheries officials together to increase production of seafood from the waters, part of which are claimed by other Asian nations.
Jiang Shigui, director of the Southern Institute of the China Fisheries Academy, and the host of the meeting to establish the alliance, said development of improved seed and marine pastures will be priorities of the new group.
Jiang Kaiyong, the academy’s southern campus deputy head, said seafood from the South China Sea will be part of China’s food security strategy. He pointed to the “huge biological resources” of the South China Sea and said, in the coming years, its waters would become central to China’s marine aquaculture production and a testbed for new technologies, as well as new varieties of fry and species.
China’s reliance on imported shrimp broodstock was highlighted recently when Chinese customs authorities in Zhanjiang – a hotbed of shrimp production in the country – destroyed 900 imported broodstock at Xiahai port because the shrimp, worth USD 35,000 (EUR 31,300), had acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND), according to Chinese customs.
Notably absent from the Sanya meeting were any representatives from Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, or Vietnam – each of which claims parts of the South China Sea also claimed by China. China has built numerous large bases build on artificial islands in the disputed waters in recent years, partially in an attempt to secure fishing waters for Chinese boats. The move has caused anger among fishermen from regional states.
