The Investigation Of The South China Sea Regional Fishery Cooperation

The South China Sea is the largest semi-enclosed sea among the three marginal seas of China, with an area of about 350 million square kilometers. The SCS has series of natural semi-submerged islands, mainly including the Dongsha, Zhongsha, Xisha and Nansha islands; and is surrounded by China on the north, Vietnam on the west, Malaysia and Brunei on the south, and Philippines on the east and some other countries. These countries have great differences of territorial sizes, geographical features, social and cultural structures and also the economic and political systems. Ongoing debates on the droid of the SCS still exists over these countries, especially the legal right of the inside islands.The SCS is rich of fishery resources. According the to statistics, about 2060 kinds of fishes live in the SCS, including as many as 30 species with high quality and economic value. The potential fishing gross of the SCS fishery resources is up to 6.5-7.5 million tons. However, due to the high speed developing of the surrounded countries and the associated growth of population, and the long term over exploited, the habitat is largely destructed and the fishery resources are drying up. Meanwhile, the debate on the droid of the SCS islands and maritime demarcation make the situation further complicated. In order to get the actual control authority, most countries around the SCS encourage the fishermen to accelerate the development of fisheries, and inevitably release its control during this process. These result in widespread over-exploitation and thus great damage on the SCS fishery resources.According to the principle of equality and mutual benefit, China has carried out cooperation in the SCS fisheries actively. Negotiations with Vietnam, Philippines and other related countries are carried out to discuss the development and protection of the fishery resources. A memorandum of cooperation between China and Philippine Department of Agriculture is signed on Sep.2004, and a formal memorandum of agreement between Philippine and Indonesia is signed in 2006 to extend the former one to 2011. In Nov.2002, the "China-ASEAN Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation" is signed between China and ASEAN and the fishery is established to be one the important parts of the economic cooperation.Due to the migratory characteristics of the fish, one country is not able to manage the fishery resource solely. The collaboration of countries are the foundation of the effective management. The establishment of the fishery management organization or bilateral arrangements becomes necessary for the international fishery management. The fishery management organization plays a unique role in promoting international cooperation on conservation and management of fish stocks. The general goal of the fishery management organization is to promote the long term sustainable use of fisheries resources, for example the goal of the "Central and Western Pacific Fisheries Commission's" goal is to "ensure the long term conservation and sustainable use of the highly migratory fish stocks in the central and western Pacific through effective management". Currently,14 fishery management organizations or arrangements have been established over the word and 1 is under construction. These organizations or arrangements cover the whole ocean areas and almost all of the important fish culture.The goal of the SCS fisheries cooperation is:on the base of mutual cooperation, via negotiations and consultations, signing a regional fisheries agreement between governments and establishing the SCS Regional Fishery Management Organization-SCS Fishery Management Council, to promote rational development and utilization of the SCS fisheries resources. In order to carry out detail procedure, the SCS Fishery Management Council could set up Fishery Development Council and Fishery Executive Council. Different councils could manage and maintain the SCS fishery resource in their specific area respectively. For the fisheries management measures, the TAC-based management system will be implemented. The total available catch and quota for each country is determined through the SCS Fishery Management Council and the related measures will be established.The cooperation of the SCS fisheries not only conforms to the international trends of establishing regional fisheries organizations, is also in accordance with the "Convention" to carry out responsible fisheries. Meanwhile, it is also one of the concrete measures of starting the SCS cooperation in order to implement the "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea". The SCS has important geo-political significance to China and it's the threshold to cross when China rising had. Establishment of regional fisheries organization led by China would promote the solvent of the SCS dispute and would also increase the influence of China to other countries around the SCS. These would prevent the foreign political forces to make the use of the SCS fisheries dispute and deteriorate the situation, and would help to strengthen our political voice over the SCS.