Commissioned by the Ministry ofAgriculture, Li Gang, Liu Bilin and Chu Xiaolin, teachers from Shanghai OceanUniversity (SOU) attended the 5th Compliance and Technical Committee Meetingand the 6th Committee Meeting of the South Pacific Regional Fishery Management Organization (SPRFMO)held in Lima, the Peruvian capital. More than 100 representatives from SPRFMOmembers, non-contracting cooperation parties and internationalintergovernmental and non-governmental organizations such as the UN Food andAgriculture Organization and the Deep Sea Convention Alliance attended themeeting.
The SPRFMOO members and the Secretariatsubmitted a total of 15 proposals to the meeting, involving visit andinspection over the high seas, observer program, position monitoring system,IUU list of fishing vessels, trans-shipment over the high seas, quotautilization of Trachurus murphyi, the scale of contributions and soliciting thelargest number of proposals regarding Chinese fishery over the high seas sincethe first SPRFMO meeting. According to the pre-conference negotiation plan,goal and task division, teachers from Shanghai Ocean University, together withthe government representatives, actively took the floor at the meeting, foughtback on the core issues concerning China’s fishery rights, coordinated with thegovernment representatives in mediation activities, solicited support from theEU, Russia, the Cook Islands and other countries and launched vigorous debateswith the USA, Australia and related coastal countries on the proposals regardingthe observer plan, visit and inspection in the high seas and ship positionmonitoring system. Due to huge differences among the parties, the meeting was adjournedseveral times and all parties reached consensus or compromise on relevantissues till the last minute. In the end, all the negotiation objectives set byChinese delegation were fully realized. In addition, during the review of thedraft list of the IUU fishing vessels by the meeting, SOU teachers submitted tothe meeting a Fuyuan Yuleng 999 track chart, confirming that thevessel's trans-shipment waters was outside the waters under the jurisdiction ofthe SPRFMO Convention and based on this, successfully removed the vessel fromthe IUU draft list, frustrating the attempts of certain countries to discreditChina and effectively maintained China’s image as a responsible fishery power.
The Fanyuan Yuleng 999track chart is obtained from the Global Fishing and Sea Condition InformationService System developed by the State Oceanographic Fishery Engineering andTechnology Center. The system enables inquiry and display of the history ofoffshore vessels and real-time position, global marine environmentalmeteorology, the exclusive economic zone and other information, as China's mostfunctionally comprehensive and most advanced integrated satellite applicationservice system for offshore fisheries.
During the meeting, Jia Guide, Ambassadorof China to Peru, met cordially with some members of the Chinese delegation,and Li Gang, as a representative to the meeting, briefed Ambassador Jia on thesituation of China's oceanic squid fishing.
At this meeting, the Chinese delegationsuccessfully fulfilled all tasks, defended China’s rights and interests in highseas fishery and the image of China as a responsible big power in fishery. Teachersof our university outstandingly performed their duties as governmentconsultants and their performances at the meeting were applauded by both representativesof Chinese government and foreign representatives.