“Imagine if, for as long as your ancestors had lived on those islands — hundreds of years, possibly more — they knew that, barring natural disasters, the sea would feed them and their loved ones,” Cleo Paskal of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told me this month. “All you had to do was go get the fish. Then, suddenly, there were no fish.” Paskal was referring to island societies in the Pacific. Across the Pacific — and across the world — China’s fishing fleets are plundering the waters of other countries. The result, even for larger communities, can be devastating. “The leading global maritime security threat today is not piracy, but rather illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and China is once again the kingpin,” wrote Raul Pedrozo, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, in 2022. His comment is even truer today.

Full opinion : Across the Pacific — and across the world — China’s fishing fleets are plundering the waters of other countries. is the pariah of the seas.