- Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness, a promise to establish a network of satellites and surveillance systems to track and monitor illegal fishing vessels.
- Beijing’s Foreign Minister and his 20-strong delegation had to contend with a reputation for disregarding exclusive economic zones (EEZs).
- Quad alliance has produced its first tangible project, Mr Citowicki said in a statement.
Quad has disclosed its plan to combat China’s ‘dark ships’, and the reaction from Beijing was swift, reports News.com
Strategic security
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), is a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. The leaders of QUAD last week announced a joint project targeted at Pacific Islands major concern- “Dark Ships”.
Dark ship’s are vessels with their Automatic Identification System (AIS),which is a transponding system, turned off so that the vessel cannot be detected.
IPMDA- A Promise
Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA), is a promise, made by the QUAD to establish a network of satellites and surveillance systems to track and monitor illegal fishing vessels or the Chinese dark ship’s.
China’s name was not brought up by QUAD, but Beijing’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his 20-strong delegation had to argue with a reputation for disregarding Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs).
Beijing not pleased
On the day of QUAD’s meeting in Tokyo, China and Russia teamed up and expressed their displeasure by flying six strategic bombers with support aircraft around Japan.
“The Indo-Pacific strategy cooked up by the United States, in the name of ‘freedom and openness,’ is actually keen on forming cliques,” Wang retorted at the weekend. “It claims that it intends to ‘change China’s surrounding environment,’ but its purpose is to contain China and make Asia-Pacific countries serve as ‘pawns’ of US hegemony.”
Pacific Forum supports proposal
Even though Russia and China are opposing the proposal, many other countries anf forum have come up to support the proposal.
“The initiative would provide both environmental and security benefits to the region,” says Pacific Forum analyst and Space Industry Association of Australia executive officer Philip Citowicki. “As China’s dark fleets would be both easier and earlier identifiable – it would support the region in pushing back against grey-zone incursions into foreign waters and the rampant bullying of local fishermen.”
Credibility gap
“We’re going to provide a global capacity that will link the systems together to track illegal shipping for the first time,”an unnamed US official revealed to British media in an interview. The anonymous US official told the Financial Times, accusing China of being responsible for 95 percent of such ‘dark boats’.
In the past 50 years the global seafood industry has grown by four times. China’s share of the total grab is around 35-40%, which is expected to triple as 2030 approaches because its fishing vessels are now violating other country’s economic zones.
Tracking difficulties
“The tracking of these ‘black ships’ is a difficult and multifaceted task, but the proliferation of earth observation and reconnaissance satellites makes it viable to track vessels that have turned off their transponders,”Mr Citowicki said.
Beijing is offended by the idea of IPMDA.
“The move toward Chinese fishing vessels is likely to be just an ‘appetiser,” accuses Hu. “Chinese government and Coast Guard vessels, as well as warships, will also become the next targets under the surveillance.”
Global Times labelled the policing project “ridiculous”.
Dark Ships
Dark ship’s are vessels with their Automatic Identification System (AIS),which is a transponding system, turned off so that the vessel cannot be detected.
These ships still use radios to communicate.They still use radar to navigate.
Many use spotlights to lure squid and fish into their nets. Regular satellite overpasses can capture their positions – and identities – through radio triangulation and high-resolution photos.
“The use of such technology has already shown its capabilities,” Mr Citowicki says. “For example, with Arctic ice melting and shipping lanes opening, HawkEye360 has used their satellites and found a lot of unexpected additional activity in the region.”
Quad plans to share this data between policing centres in India, Singapore, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands to guide their limited policing assets towards successful intercepts.
Brazen offender
China’s heavily subsidised fleet has been judged the world’s worst offender under the Global Illegal Fishing Index. Despite so many evidence, Beijing keeps on rejecting these accusations.
Beijing insists its fishing fleet “strictly complies” with international agreements and laws. It says it monitors all the activities and points to voluntary fishing bans to prove its sincerity.
But these vessels do more than just illegal fishing.
According to Mr Citowicki, “China has been extremely effective in using their maritime militia through grey-zone incursions into foreign waters and targeted harassment of local fishing vessels.Their vessels can often be found not to be engaging in fishing, but instead stand accused of operating alongside Chinese law enforcement and military vessels to achieve political objectives in disputed waters.”
The Philippines, last year, highlighted the prolonged presence of Chinese fishing vessels within its economic zone of Thitu Island. Up to 287 boats were moored, inactive, at a nearby reef for several months.
IPMDA- only a Verbal Commitment
Mr Citowicki says he is pleased the Quad alliance has produced its first tangible project. “Often, it’s just a litany of verbal commitments that come from such gatherings,” he says. “However, questions still remain as to how it will all happen and who is driving it. Such an initiative will likely be cumbersome and potentially costly to set up.”
The matter of enforcement of the scheme remains unresolved.
Did you subscribe to our newsletter?
It’s free! Click here to subscribe!
Source: News.com
