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A few months ago, I've heard rumors about Chinese fishing fleets that hover near the edge of international waters and terribly overfish not to actually obtain food, but to intentionally crash ecosystems and harm other countries' economy. Is there any substance to those, or is it just another thing that someone made up, probably originating on /pol/?
They exist. They've been known to operate, not just in the South China Sea, but in the South Pacific and even farther abroad. They sometimes operate illegally (eg within the Galapagos Islands), or just unsustainably in international waters. I don't know about intentionally doing economic harm, but the overfishing part seems real. Also the Chinese government used to subsidise fuel for it's fishing fleets which directly contributed to their impact.
Most of the sources here are a few years old. I'm not sure of the current status of these fleets. The New York Times said in 2022, the fleet basically camped permanently off the cost of South America (paywall).
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