In a move with strong geopolitical and strategic impact, Japan announced the launch of an assistance program aimed at strengthening the maritime surveillance capacity of South American countries that face growing pressure from Chinese fishing fleets that operate illegally or irregularly in bordering international waters. The initiative will benefit Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, and Ecuador, four key nations in the defense of the natural resources of the South Atlantic and South Pacific.
The program, confirmed by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and reported by Nikkei Asia, includes the shipment of surveillance drones, inflatable patrol boats, and advanced technological equipment for the analysis of aerial images. Tokyo allocated a total of 300 million yen for this purpose, equivalent to USD 1.9 million, which will be channeled through the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
According to official sources, the technology will make it possible to identify more precisely the registration of the vessels, the size of their crews, and the routes followed by the ships, a central aspect in the face of a practice that is increasingly widespread among Chinese fleets: the deliberate deactivation of GPS transponders to avoid satellite tracking.
International concern is not new. Chinese fishing fleets maintain an active presence in the vicinity of the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador, and then move down off the coasts of Peru and Chile. In the South Atlantic, intense activity has been confirmed in waters near Argentina and Uruguay. These fleets are suspected not only of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, but also of carrying out sensitive information-gathering tasks, such as seabed mapping.
In Argentina, the phenomenon reached alarming levels during the last decade. According to data from Global Fishing Watch cited by the media, fishing activity in the area known as the "201st Mile," located at the outer limit of the Exclusive Economic Zone, went from 61,727 hours per 500 square kilometers in 2013 to 384,046 hours in 2023. This is exponential growth that exposes the magnitude of the problem.
