Dear Editor,

I have become so aware of Australia’s virulent anti-Chinese campaign that I have taken to checking articles in the press. Last month’s “The fleet that empties our oceans” by Reese Halter in this paper is a case in point.

The article stated that “China’s fishing armada operates more hours than the next 10 biggest nations combined.” What does that mean? And is it true?

In 2020 statista.com produced these figures for countries fishing, in terms of catch.

Top 10 fishing nations worldwide in 2018 (in million metric tons):China 14.65, Indonesia 7.23, Peru 7.17, India 5.32, Russia 5.11USA 4.74, Vietnam 3.35, Japan 3.13, Norway 2.49, Chile 2.12

So, in terms of catch, yes, China is at the top of the list but it takes around 25% of the top 10 countries, not the 10 times as much as inferred by the article. Why was the article so weighted against China? Why did it only deal with Chinese fishing vessels?

I am in no way questioning the problem of overfishing in the world however it does not help to give such a distorted view of the problem. Australian racism towards the Chinese has a long history. Perhaps it’s time we did acknowledge that we are indeed part of Asia and that we are well placed to benefit from China’s emergence as an economic superpower. 

Christine Olsen

Brunswick Heads 2483