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LIMA: The Peruvian Navy on Friday was closely watching a fleet of around 250 Chinese fishing boats that had sailed just outside the Andean country’s waters, enraging the national fishing industry and sparking a Twitter war between Washington and Beijing.
The fleet, which previously fished for giant squid near the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador, was detected this week by Peruvian naval forces some 370.15 kilometers off the country’s coast, the local maritime authority reported.
“Our Navy is conducting overflights ensuring that there are no such vessels within the range of our jurisdiction, which is 200 miles,” Defense Minister Jorge Chávez told reporters on Friday.
The commander of Coast Guard operations, Rear Admiral Jorge Portocarrero, told Reuters the fleet was identified and located after a low-altitude flight by a scout plane and a patrol boat between Sunday and Wednesday.
“They are not all in one place, they are scattered,” he said, adding that there were 250-270 ships. “We have no evidence that they have entered our maritime space.”
The US embassy in Lima said the Chinese vessels had a history of avoiding tracking and appeared to be “spewing plastic pollutants.”
“Overfishing can cause enormous ecological and economic damage. Peru cannot afford such a loss, ”the US embassy said this week on Twitter.
The Chinese embassy responded that it attaches great importance to protecting the environment and the ocean. “We hope that the Peruvian public is not misled by false information,” he said on Twitter.
Friend and partner
Peru’s Foreign Ministry tried to ease the tension, saying it had expressed its displeasure to US officials over the “inaccuracy” of the US embassy tweets. Peru is the world’s second largest producer of copper, much of which is bought by China.
Vice Minister Talavera said he had told US officials that Peru “is a friend and partner” of both the United States and China and asked them to resolve their differences through dialogue, understanding and cooperation.
Local fishing associations said indiscriminate fishing for giant squid damages the national industry. Squid represents 43% of Peru’s fish exports.
“It is an open secret that every year vessels are installed mainly from China … just to the edge of 200 miles from Peru to extract this resource,” said Cayetana Aljovín, president of the National Fisheries Society on Friday.
“By extracting an unregulated resource in those waters, it could negatively impact the Peruvian ecosystem.”
Peru’s government passed a law in August that requires local and foreign vessels operating off its coast to use GPS and Sisesat equipment, a satellite tracking system for vessels.
Portoccarero claimed that the fleet of Chinese ships has been present in the Pacific Ocean for years, from the north of Chile, the coast of Peru and near the Galapagos Islands, depending on the migration patterns of the squid.
He added that in 2004 three Chinese-flagged ships were captured within the Peruvian maritime territory, after an operation with a Navy submarine and a helicopter, although he added that this type of fleet was found in places around the world.
“We have a big one in front of Argentina, another in the north of Brazil, there are several around Australia, New Zealand, East Africa and in the Indian Ocean. It is a global problem, ”he said.
