Western think tank reports on the fishery sector are ideologically biased and only targeted at China while ignoring transgressions by the Filipino fishing sector, according to the Chinese language edition of the Global Times, a state-run newspaper.
The report is based on visits by Global Times staff to fish markets in Manila, where they were offered various coral fish, including grouper, and the endangered Tridacna clam for sale. The Philippines has allowed “barbaric growth” of its fishing fleet due to the country's low-end fishery technology, the “absence of laws and regulations,” and “insufficient law enforcement capacity,” it claimed.
China's efforts to sustainably manage South China Sea fisheries are “not always understood and are even distorted by individual countries,” the Global Times said. It also reported, without further elaboration, that the U.S. and the Philippines have sought to fabricate the image of "China as an ecological killer in the South China Sea" internationally.
The Global Times, which is operated the People’s Daily group, which itself is run by the Chinese Communist Party, claimed Western NGOs and think tanks were drafting research reports to suit the anti-China political ends of Manila and Washington, D.C., governmental officials.
The Global Times quoted Chen Xiao, a professor at the School of Oceanography at South China Agricultural University, as saying the reasons behind the damage to coral reefs in the region were “complex” and largely caused by ...
