China informed that it would boost patrols in the South China Sea to deal with the growing threat of illegal fishing and sharpening territorial disputes. According to a Chinese official China has dispatched a converted naval vessel to patrol fishing grounds surrounding the disputed Paracel Islands, about 400 miles (640 kilometers) south of Hong Kong.
Fisheries department director Wu Zhuang opined that additional patrols were needed to handle new “challenges and complications” in overseeing the 1.16 million square miles (3 million square kilometers) of ocean China claims in the South China Sea. He also said that faced with a growing amount of illegal fishing and other countries’ unfounded territorial claims of islands it has become necessary to step up the fishery administration’s patrols to protect China’s rights and interests.
The dispatch of a converted naval vessel was followed a confrontation between a U.S. Navy survey vessel and Chinese boats earlier this month about 75 miles (120 miles) off China’s southern island province of Hainan, in which the U.S. boat said it was harassed, threatened, and its way blocked by a pair of Chinese-flagged fishing trawlers. Wu was quoted as saying that additional boats would be added to the fisheries administration fleet, possibly including converted naval vessels as well as newly built vessels.
It is said that territorial conflicts in the South China Sea have occasionally broken out into armed confrontation, although China and the other claimants have sought to resolve differences peacefully under a 2002 code of conduct.
