Just as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) passed a Japanese resolution for sanctions to be placed on Taiwan's deep-sea tuna fishing fleet that will lead to enormous losses, Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) was giving ¥1 million (US$8,358) and 100 local specialities to the 1-millionth Japanese tourist to visit Taiwan this year. It is regrettable that Taiwan's representatives have not yet expressed their discontent to Japanese over the ICCAT's sanctions. Nor was there the slightest hint or warning given during the various rounds of fishing talks that have taken place between Taiwan and Japan this year. What kind of "friendly relationship" is that?
The government's handling of the ICCAT sanctions gives the impression that all Taiwan's deep-sea fishermen are involved in illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing. It makes no mention of the program to cut the number of fishing boats and other cooperation programs signed by Taiwan and Japan or regulatory fishing measures adopted by international or regional fishing industry organizations.
It is the government's responsibility to guarantee the interests of Taiwanese fishermen legally authorized to engage in deep-sea fishing. In addition, boats involved in IUU fishing are not necessarily in complete violation of international fishing regulations. It is also not necessarily illegal for fishing boats to fly a flag of convenience. Boats involved in IUU fishing should therefore be equated to fishing boats operating under a flag of convenience.
I think the government agencies in charge, in particular those decisionmakers above the Fisheries Agency, have been careless in their monitoring of the situation, and their actions following the ICCAT decision have been disappointing.
Calls for international ocean conservation resources, responsible fishing methods, abolishing excessive demands on fishermen's abilities and preventing IUU fishing are not problems that can be solved in a day or two, but the government's top decisionmakers have been quite tardy in their reaction. They are still not aware of the importance of the ICCAT's decision last year to observe Taiwan for one year.
The nation's leaders really must take responsibility for their inability to rule that has produced this passive, negative, slow reaction and also its lack of sensitivity to fishing diplomacy and deep-sea- fishing control policies.
It is also quite ironic that the government insists on treating the sanctions in a low-key manner because of the importance of Taiwan's relationship with Japan, even though Japan's judiciary, in violation of the UN's Convention on the Law of the Sea, is suggesting the establishment of a 200 nautical mile (370.4km) exclusive economic zone around the Okinotori atoll, and even though Japan expelled the Taiwanese fishing boat Lungjung 2 and issued a fine for violation of its exclusive economic zone legislation.
Almost no leader of any country would sacrifice important maritime interests in order to establish bilateral relations. This kind of wishful diplomatic thinking may have serious impact, resulting in the loss of power and national humiliation.
On Nov. 22, I found statistics from a report by the Environmental News Service to be quite ironic: Japan is the world's biggest consumer of raw tuna, consuming 450,000 tonnes of tuna per year and in addition to the 200,000 tonnes of tuna that Japan's tuna boats catch each year, it also imports another 270,000 tonnes annually.
Furthermore, the fishing quotas awarded to Japan by various major international and regional tuna conservation management organizations are far greater than for many other nations. As Japan is calling for other nations to drastically cut the number of fishing boats and strengthen fishery controls, it really should stop and ask how much it is contributing to the issue itself.
Japan is also partially responsible for Taiwan's oversized tuna industry and deep-sea fishing capabilities. If it had not been for the high demands of Japanese companies, the low interest rates offered by Japanese banks, Japanese exports of second-hand fishing boats and Tokyo's inability to apply controls to the export of turbine engines for fishing boats, Taiwan's tuna fishing industry would not have been able to develop so rapidly, making it larger than even Japan's. Japan now looks at this development with regret and envy, and the result is that it has spent the past few years trying to find ways of suppressing the development of Taiwan's tuna fishing industry.
Is this really aimed at supporting worldwide tuna conservation, or are they the result of pressure from Japan's domestic tuna fishery and purely aimed at supporting commercial interests?
The double standards displayed by Japan's deep-sea fishing industry and certain steps violating international law requires both a strong reaction and counter measures from Taiwan's government.
Both the government and the Taiwanese fishing industry must take an earnest look at ICCAT's passage of sanctions and rapidly reform the policies, systems and regulations used to manage the industry. At the same time, the people of Taiwan must recognize the realities of the international political situation.
The government should not exchange national sovereignty and important maritime interests for unreliable "friendly bilateral relations."
Song Yann-huei is a research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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