Follow the link for a full transcript of "Global Threats Today: The 2024 Edition."

Illiberal Actors Are on the Move  |  Amichai Magen

Around the world, we are seeing a new axis of influence coalescing. Some have called it the "axis of misery" or the "axis of resistance." It is composed of Russia and Iran and North Korea, with a lot of Chinese involvement as well. It is transforming our international system in unbelievable ways. It is united by the desire to dismantle the liberal international order, and we're starting to see the nature and the interconnectivity of this new axis of chaos much more clearly. 

You see North Korean soldiers fighting for Putin in Ukraine. You see Putin helping the Houthis attack international Western shipping in Yemen. We see North Korean tunnel technology turn up in Lebanon with Hezbollah and then with Hamas in Gaza. The interconnectivity is something that we really need to know much more about.

Historically, emperors, kings, dukes, used to spend 50% of their resources on preparing for war or waging war. But in the post-Second World War era, we built a critical norm that we've called the liberal international order. And the miracle of the liberal international order is that we've managed to take global averages of defense spending from about 50% to a global average of about 7%. And the resulting surplus wealth has allowed us to invest in education, health, and scientific discovery.

What is at stake now is the possibility of a return of a norm where states are destroyed and disappear. And we have currently three states in the international system, at the very least — Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — that are at risk of annihilation. To that end, we must articulate a positive strategic vision for the Middle East that will strive towards a two state solution, that would give the Palestinian people the dignity and the freedom that they deserve alongside a safe and secure Israel, and that will leverage the new spirit of cooperation that exists in the Middle East.

If we allow the norm of the non-disappearance of state to erode and collapse, we will go back to the law of the jungle, where we will have to spend so much more money on the wrong things. That is what is at stake in Ukraine, in the Middle East, and with Taiwan.
 

Challenges to Democracy Come From Within |  Didi Kuo

Many people think that the threat to democracy comes from outside our borders, particularly from countries like Russia and China that are asserting themselves in new and aggressive ways.

But the real threat to democracies that we're seeing across the globe is coming from within. Leaders come to power through democratic means, but then they begin to erode power from within. They attack the electoral system and the process of democratic elections, and they take power from other branches of government and aggregate it to themselves within the office of the executive. 

The good news is there are examples of countries like France, Brazil, and Poland where illiberal leaders have been stopped by pro-democracy coalitions of people who came together. These coalitions don't necessarily agree with each other politically, but they've come together and adapted in order to foreclose on these anti-democratic forces. 

That flexibility and adaptability is the reason democracies succeed. We see this over and over again in the the United States. When our institutions have become out of date, we've changed them. We extended suffrage, first to Black Americans who were formerly enslaved, then to women, then to Native Americans. We eliminating poll taxes and rethought what it means to have a multiracial democracy. We have a long track record of making changes.

Today in 2024, some of our democratic institutions are antiquated and don't reflect our contemporary values. This is a moment where we should lean into that flexible strength of democracy and think about institutional reforms that will both strengthen our system against illiberal creep and help us better achieve the ideals that we aspiring to as a people.
 

Ukraine Is Not Fated to Lose |  Steven Pifer

There's a narrative that's taking place that Russia is winning the war, Ukraine is losing, and it's only a matter of time. And it is true that Russia has captured a bit more territory than they occupied at the start of the year. But they've only achieved that at enormous cost.

As of September, the Pentagon says Russia had lost 600,000 dead and wounded soldiers. To put that in context, in February of 2022 when this major invasion began, the total Russian military — not just the army, but the total Russian military — was 1.1 million people. And the British Ministry of Defense earlier this week assessed that Russia now is losing 1,200 soldiers killed or severely wounded per day. You have to ask how long that's sustainable.

When I talk to Ukrainians, they still regard this war as existential. They're very determined to win, and we need to do a better job of supporting that. A stable and secure Europe is vital to America's national security interests, and you're not going to have a stable and secure Europe unless there's a stable and secure Ukraine. So we need to both provide them the weapons they need and relieve some of the restrictions we currently have and allow the Ukrainians to use those weapons to strike military targets in Russia.

Because we have to ask ourselves: what does an emboldened Vladimir Putin do if he wins in Ukraine? I don't think his ambitions end with Ukraine, perhaps not even with the post-Soviet space. There's going to be a much darker Russian threat hovering over Europe if Putin wins. So let's not count the Ukrainians out.
 

China Isn't Going Away Anytime Soon  |  Oriana Skylar Mastro

There is a lot of discussion right now about the fact that the economy in China is slowing down and its demography is undergoing significant changes. What I'm here to tell you is that the challenge of China is not over, and is not going to be over any time soon. China has built power in a different way than the United States, and we have to reassess how we understand that power if we want to effectively deter, blunt, and block them from acting out in ways that threaten our partners and allies.

Since the 1990s, China has developed a significant amount of political, economic, and military power. They've gone from having an economy smaller than France’s  to the second largest in the world. They've gone from not being involved in international institutions to a great degree, not even having diplomatic relations with major countries like South Korea, to now having stronger and greater diplomatic networks, especially in Asia, than the United States.

What we really need to understand is that the U.S.-China competition is not about the United States or about China; it's about the rest of the world, and how the rest of the world sees us and how China interacts with us. The balance of power is shifting, and we have to be a lot smarter and a lot faster if we want to make sure it shifts in favor of our interests.

The United States hasn't had a comprehensive strategy towards the developing world in a long time. And we are running out of time to get that balance right in Asia. We don't have the right stuff. We don't have it in the right numbers, and it's not in the right place. Some of this is about deterring war over Taiwan, but it's also about generally maintaining peace and stability in Asia.
 

We're Doing Better (But Not Enough) on Climate Change |  Marshall Burke

Many people don't recognize how much progress we're actually making on climate issues. Emissions have fallen by 20% since 2005. We're actually speeding up the amount of substantial progress being made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dealing with the core climate change problem, which is the human emission of greenhouse gasses.

In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act and the subsequent implementation of various rules the Biden administration has championed has given a huge boost in transitioning our economy to greener energy technologies, transportation technologies, and other kinds of infrastructure. We're moving a lot of cash to get that done, and the president is trying to get as much of it out the door as he can before his term ends.

Globally, the progress has been less rapid. Emissions are roughly flat. But overall, we're still making progress. I co-teach an undergraduate class on climate change, and we've had to update our slides on how much warming we're expecting over the next century. We thought it was going to be four degrees Celsius. Now we think it's going to be something between two and three degrees Celsius.

But the flip side of that is that we're still going to get warming of two to three degrees Celsius. We're already experiencing warming of about a degree Celsius, which is about two degrees Fahrenheit, and it's projected that we're going to get another three to five degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. That is a lot of warming, and we are not prepared to deal with it. We need to do much more on mitigation and much more on adaptation if we're going to meet the realities of living in a changing climate.

So we've had progress on the one hand, but there's still a lot of work left to do in the coming decades.
 

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Follow the link for a full transcript of "Global Threats: What's at Stake and What We Can Do About It."

Reform the Electoral College |  Didi Kuo

One of the major problems people feel right now in American politics is that their voices aren’t heard. We live in what my colleague Francis Fukuyama calls a "vetocracy," meaning there are a lot of veto points in our system.

In a lot of other democratic institutional configurations, you have rule by the majority. But in the United States, we have an institutional configuration that allows a very small group — for example, 15 people in the House of Representatives — to hold up government in various ways. We see this in dramatic examples on the national level, but it also trickles down to the local level where you see it in issues like permitting hold-ups.

Reforming the Electoral College would be a very direct way of changing that vetocracy. The United States is one of the only advanced democracies that has this indirect system of elections. If all the votes counted equally and all the presidential candidates had to treat all of us the same and respond to us equally in all 50 states, it would do a lot to show the power of the popular vote and realign us more closely to the principle of majoritarianism that we should seek in our institutions.

Allow Taiwan to License Weapons Production |  Larry Diamond

My recommendation is deterrence, deterrence, deterrence. It is not inevitable that the People's Republic of China is going to launch an all-out military assault on Taiwan. But if the United States does not do more to make that a costly decision, the likelihood it will happen are exponentially higher.

Deterrence works. The United States deterred the Soviet Union from moving against West Berlin and much of Europe for decades. But it only works if you have a superior force.

To that end, the United States needs to pre-position more military force in the region. There's now a $12 billion backlog of weapons that Taiwan has ordered and paid for but hasn't received yet. That’s because the American defense production system is completely broken. This is the same reason why we can’t get weapons to Ukraine at the pace we need there.

This issue could be fixed, at least in part, if we licensed the production of some of these weapon systems directly to Taiwan. Their ability to build plants and produce these systems is much more agile than our own, and so licensing the rights to production would dramatically increase the deterrence factor against China, in addition to deepening our cooperation with allies throughout the region.

Pursue Climate Mitigation AND Adaptation |  Marshall Burke

There are three things we can do in response to climate change: we can mitigate, we can adapt, or we can suffer. We’re off to a good start, but we have decades of long slog ahead of us to get that right. And it's not just us; even if we do a good job, we depend on other countries to also do a good job. The Biden administration has already been engaged on some of that front, but there’s more work to do there.

And even with our best efforts, we are not going to be able to move as fast as we want or mitigate our greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as we need to avoid climate change. So, we're going to have to live with some climate change, which means adaptation. And if we can't adapt, then we're going to suffer. 

The key point is that we are very poorly adapted to today's climate, much less the climate we're going to have 30 or 50 years from now. The West Coast and California are prime examples of this. There have been monumental wildfire seasons there the last few years, and there are significant negative health impacts from smoke exposure. I see it in my own home, even as someone who studies this and should know better and do more to reduce those risks.

The point is, we're really poorly adapted to the current climate, and things are going to get a lot worse. We need to focus on mitigation; it’s still really important and we need to get it done. But at the same time, we need to figure out how to adapt and live with the changing climate that we're going to experience.

Weapons for Ukraine, Sanctions on Russia |  Michael McFaul

When I was in Kyiv this September, I had a chance to meet with President Zelenskyy, and he pointed out an absolutely crazy reality. Companies in the United States and Europe are still making tens of thousands of dollars in profits from selling various technologies that ultimately end up in Russia. It’s getting in through places like Hong Kong and Kazakhstan and Belarus and Georgia, and it allows Russia to keep waging its horrific war.

At the same time, the United States is spending millions of dollars to arm Ukraine with systems to shoot down the Russian rockets that were built using the components they got from the West. That’s completely illogical, bad policy. I know it’s hard to control technology, but we have to find a better way than what we’re doing right now. If you're an American taxpayer, that is your money being wasted.

That means more and better weapons for Ukraine, faster. And that means more and better sanctions on Russia, faster. That is the way to speed the end of this war.

Be Confident in America |  Amichai Magen

Just a few short years ago, we were all talking about the decline of the United States. I think that is far from inevitable. People speak about the 20th century as the “American Century.” The 21st century can also be the American Century. It's in our hands.

Be bullish on America. Be confident in America. Rediscover the spirit of America for adaptation and innovation and entrepreneurship. We need to wake up from the break we’ve taken from history in the post-Cold War era and rally once again in our spirit, our research, and our intellect.

We need to find new solution structures to the great challenges of our era: environmental challenges, AI, biotechnological challenges, nuclear challenges. And we can do it. China is on the verge of demographic decline and economic decline. Russia is a very dangerous international actor, but it is not a global superpower. We must reinvent the institutions and the alliances that we need for the 21st century in order to make sure that we continue a journey towards greater peace and prosperity for all of mankind.

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As authors of “China’s aquaculture and the world’s fisheries” (Cao et al., Science, 2015), we would like to dispute several claims presented in “A revisit to fishmeal usage and associated consequences in Chinese aquaculture” (Han et al.,^§ Reviews in Aquaculture, 2016), as the latter seriously misrepresents the intent and substance of  our Science paper.

In their review, Han and colleagues argue that although China’s aquaculture volume continues to grow, its fishmeal usage remains stable, and the sector will therefore indirectly reduce pressure on wild fish stocks worldwide. In the process, they claim that we do not acknowledge the important contribution of the Chinese aquaculture sector to global food supply. They also claim that we criticize the sector’s excessive use of fishmeal and that we trot out the “Chinese aquaculture threat” theory. We are aware of Han and colleagues’ comprehensive work on substitution and sustainable sourcing of fishmeal and fish oil in aquaculture, which is clearly aligned with our perspective. However, we believe that the underlying intention of our Science paper has been seriously misinterpreted, and there are several inaccuracies in their review that are important to clarify and correct.

Here, we emphasize and reiterate the key points in our paper: China’s impact on marine ecosystems and global seafood supplies is unrivaled given its dominant role in fish production, consumption, processing and trade. Its aquaculture sector, by far the world’s largest, is of enormous global importance for meeting the rising demand for food and particularly for protein. Understanding the implications of the industry’s past and current practices is important for managing its future impacts and improving its sustainability. The country’s nonspecific and erroneous reporting of fish production and trade makes it especially difficult to access the impact of China’s aquaculture and aquafeed use on global wild fisheries. We unraveled the complicated nature of China’s expanding aquaculture sector and its multifaceted use of fish inputs in feeds, to the best of our abilities. We also developed a roadmap for China’s aquaculture to become self-supporting of fishmeal by recycling processing wastes from its farmed products as feed. We showed that if food safety and supply chain constraints can be overcome, extensive use of fish processing waste in feeds could help China meet one-half or more of its current fishmeal demand, thus greatly reducing pressure on domestic and international fisheries. In addition, we suggested China to commit to stricter enforcement of regulations on capture fisheries and to responsible sourcing of fishmeal and fish oil, as well as to improve its data reporting and sharing on the status of fisheries stocks, aquaculture practices, production, and trade.

We would like to respond specifically to the following points in Han et al (2016):

1.     “Role of China’s aquaculture in meeting the rising demand for fish at home and abroad is not acknowledged by Cao et al., 2015.”

Our response: Our paper conveys a clear message that China’s aquaculture industry is by far the world’s largest and of great importance for meeting the rising domestic and global demand for fish and protein.

2.     “China contributes more than 60% to the global aquaculture output and is expected to contribute 38% to the global food fish supply by 2030, however costs only 25-30% of the world fishmeal. The above facts are contradictory to the views expressed that Chinese aquaculture is a threat to the world’s wild fish resources (Cao et al., 2015). China’s aquaculture and aquafeed industry have some special features leading to the steady fishmeal usage, which consequently does not impose additional stressors on the world wild fish stocks, drawing a conflicting conclusion to that found in Naylor et al. (2000, 2009) and Cao et al. (2015).”

Our response: Our paper clearly indicates that China is a net contributor of fish (fed fish). The table in our paper shows that from 5 million metric tons (mmt) forage fish equivalents, 14.4 mmt of finfish and shrimp were produced in 2012 (21 mmt is the total but with the non-fed carp species having been subtracted). Moreover, we write: “If China is to increase its net production of fish protein, its aquaculture industry will need to reduce FCRs and the inclusion of fish ingredients in feeds and to improve fishmeal quality”. Thus, we are not asserting that China consumes more fish than the fed fish it produces, but rather we are challenging the industry to further increase its current net production of fish protein.

While China’s fishmeal import has been stable at a level of 1-1.5 mmt over the past decade, it should be noted that the use of fishmeal for aquaculture has increasingly been diverted from the livestock to aquaculture sector. There are no official statistics specifying in which sector the fishmeal is used. One market trend study published in Chinese stated that the share of fishmeal use for aquaculture in China has exceeded the share used by livestock since 2010, growing from 38 percent (0.73 mmt) in 2005 to 64 percent (0.96 mmt) in 2011 (see Fig. 1). Our observation is consistent with the literature that supports a trend of shifting in fishmeal use from other sectors towards aquaculture (De Silva and Turchini, 2008).

We agree that China has made remarkable progress in identifying alternative ingredients for substituting fishmeal and fish oil in aquafeeds, especially for low-trophic level species. We are more concerned with the high inclusion rate of fishmeal in high-trophic carnivorous species and using trash fish as feeds for aquaculture. 

Image

Figure 1. Fishmeal use in China (Chen 2012)

 

3.      “China’s domestic fishmeal production is based on processing waste and trash fish.”

Our response: Han and colleagues confirmed our observations. However, we are more concerned with the impacts of harvesting low-value trash fish species on the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems and global food security (Smith et al., 2011). Multi-species (non-targeted) catch, commonly designated as “marine fish nei” (nei: not elsewhere included) by FAO, surpasses the catch of any individual species in China’s ocean capture fisheries. Combined with by-catch and other poor quality fish from targeted fisheries, it is a major contributor to what the international research community often refers to as low-value “trash fish”. Although these fish resources are considered to be “low-value” in the market, they are derived from fisheries that have a higher social value for direct human consumption and marine ecosystems (Tacon et al., 2006). Whilst it is true that trash fish includes naturally small fish, it is also true that significant numbers of juvenile fish are also taken and, in combination with poorly regulated fisheries, this take of juvenile fish undoubtedly contributes to the poor status of many fish stocks. Virtually all of the fish hauled out of the ocean by Chinese vessels are put to economic use, first for human consumption, and then for feeds and other purposes. Large amounts of trash fish are being used for fishmeal production and China’s high-value marine aquaculture uses around 3 mmt of trash fish each year for direct feeding. Notwithstanding the improvements in feed efficiency demonstrated by Han et al relieves the issue of overfishing, China’s increased use of trash fish for aquaculture deserves further investigation.

4.     Data quality issue: “Survey data in the studies of Chiu et al. (2013) and Cao et al. (2015) from only four provinces of China, Guangdong, Shandong, Zhejiang, and Hainan don’t fully represent the status of Chinese aquaculture, in particular freshwater aquaculture.”

Our response: We present data and analyses based on not only primary field surveys and observations from the four major aquaculture producing regions in China, but also on national production and trade statistics, and scientific papers from the Chinese and international literature. We use the same national fisheries statistics databases as Han and colleagues do. In terms of our field data collection, Guangdong and Shandong provinces are the top two aquaculture producers in China. The four provinces together account for over one third of China’s aquaculture production and one quarter of its freshwater aquaculture output by volume. The field data were based on in-depth field surveys conducted by Stanford University and the EU-FP7 Sustaining Ethical Aquaculture Trade (SEAT) project during the year of 2010-2012. The surveys focused on carp, tilapia, and shrimp systems, which represent three of the largest aquaculture sub-sectors in China along a spectrum of low- to high-valued species and account for over 50% of the country’s aquaculture output by volume. So we are confident that the provinces that we selected are representative for the farming systems in focus.

As highlighted in both publications, obtaining this type of data from China is notoriously difficult. Our reliance on information from only four provinces is due to the lack of publicly available studies of trash fish catches in other studies and the lack of regular monitoring of catches and stock status. Given the uncertainty involved and the difficulty in obtaining more accurate data, we have endeavored to provide the best available data from primary and secondary sources in order to demonstrate how dependence on fishmeal from targeted and non-targeted fisheries can be substantially reduced. In order to bring as much rigor to the analysis as possible, we have also incorporated uncertainty analysis via Monte Carlo simulation. Many scientists agree that this is a fair approach and our analysis is valid.

Closing Remarks

There is no question that China’s aquaculture will remain a dominant industry domestically and internationally in the future. At the global scale, the sector has expanded at an annual rate of 8.8% during the past three decades—faster than any other animal food sector—and it currently accounts for about half of all fish produced for human consumption. Within this dynamic context, China’s aquaculture sector remains an important “black box” for many scientists and policy analysts with respect to farming practices, aquafeed demand, domestic fishmeal production, trash fish consumption, and impacts on global capture fisheries. Our paper helps to crack open this black box, and it provides an integrated and innovative perspective on the status and trends of China’s aquaculture development. If Han and colleagues have more accurate data to share, we would be more than happy to take these data into account in our attempt to map the fishmeal use in China and steer China’s aquaculture industry towards best practice. To that end, we recommend that China establishes a public process for data reporting and sharing on fisheries stock status, aquaculture practices, production, and trade.

We hope these responses have clarified the misinterpretations of our paper by Han et al. (2016), and that these points can be corrected accordingly. It is important to note that we, the study authors, and Han et al. are clearly united in the recognition that China’s aquaculture industry is a key component of meeting the country’s and the world’s growing protein needs. We also agree on the importance of sustainable aquaculture practices in China that safeguard the health of wild fisheries at home and abroad. We truly believe in China’s commitment to the development of more sustainable and responsible aquaculture practices based on ecological principles. We look forward to a more positive intellectual exchange with Han and colleagues in the future as we strive for this common goal.

Ling Cao[1]^,*, Rosamond Naylor¹ , Patrik Henriksson^2,3, Duncan Leadbitter⁴, Max Troell^{3, 5}, Wenbo Zhang⁶

References

Cao, L., Naylor, R.L, Henriksson, P., Leadbitter, D., Metian, M., Troell, M., & Zhang, W. (2015). China's aquaculture and the world's wild fisheries. Science, 347(6218), 133-135.

Chen, M. (2012). Fishmeal Market Analysis and Outsourcing Strategy in 2012 (in Chinese). Fisheries Advance Magazine, (4), 95–97. Available at: http://d.wanfangdata.com.cn/Periodical_hyyyy-scqy201204059.aspx.

Chiu, A., Li, L., Guo, S., Bai, J., Fedor, C., Naylor, R.L. (2013). Feed and fishmeal use in the production of carp and tilapia in China. Aquaculture, 414, 127-134.

De Silva, S. S., and Turchini, G. M. (2008). Towards understanding the impacts of the pet food industry on world fish and seafood supplies. Journal of agricultural and environmental ethics, 21(5), 459-467.

Han, D., Shan, X., Zhang, W., Chen, Y., Wang, Q., Li, Z., Zhang, G., Xu, P., Li, J., Xie, S., Mai, K., Tang, Q., De Silva, S. (2016). A revisit to fishmeal usage and associated consequences in Chinese aquaculture. Reviews in Aquaculture. In press.

Naylor, R.L., Goldburg, R.J., Primavera, J.H., Kautsky, N., Beveridge, M.C., Clay, J., Folke, C., Lubchenco, J., Mooney, H. and Troell, M. (2000). Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies. Nature, 405(6790), 1017-1024.

Naylor, R.L., Hardy, R.W., Bureau, D.P., Chiu, A., Elliott, M., Farrell, A.P., Forster, I., Gatlin, D.M., Goldburg, R.J., Hua, K., Nichols, P.D. (2009). Feeding aquaculture in an era of finite resources. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(36), 15103-15110.

Smith, A.D., Brown, C.J., Bulman, C.M., Fulton, E.A., Johnson, P., Kaplan, I.C., Lozano-Montes, H., Mackinson, S., Marzloff, M., Shannon, L.J., Shin, Y.J. (2011). Impacts of fishing low–trophic level species on marine ecosystems. Science, 333(6046), 1147-1150.

Tacon, A.G.J, Hasan, M.R., Subasinghe, R.P. (2006). FAO Fisheries Circular. No.1018; FAO 2010. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Report. No. 949.

Stanford researchers view ocean management as next front for China to compete as global sustainability leaders.

As global fish stocks continue sinking to alarmingly low levels, a joint study by marine fisheries experts from within and outside of China concluded that the country’s most recent fisheries conservation plan can achieve a true paradigm shift in marine fisheries management – but only if the Chinese government embraces major institutional reform.

The researchers, led by Stanford University’s Ling Cao and Rosamond Naylor, published their perspective piece “Opportunity for Marine Fisheries Reform in China,” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

The researchers examined the history of Chinese government priorities, policies, and outcomes related to marine fisheries since China’s 1978 Economic Reform, and examined how its leaders’ agenda for “ecological civilization” could successfully transform marine resource management in the coming years.

“The goal of our research was to explore the opportunities for marine fisheries reform in China that arise from their 13^th Five-Year Plan and show how the best available science can be used in the design and implementation of fisheries management in China's coastal and ocean ecosystems,” said Cao, a Research Scholar with Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

The most recent plan provides a policy platform for the protection of marine ecosystems and the restoration of fisheries within China’s exclusive economic zone – an area of coastal water and seabed to which China claims exclusive rights for fishing, drilling, and other economic activities. They found that while China has attempted to reverse the trend of declining fish stocks in the past, serious institutional reforms are needed to achieve a true shift in marine fisheries management. The authors recommend new institutions for science-based fisheries management, secure fishing access, policy consistency across provinces, educational programs for fisheries managers, and increasing public access to scientific data.

The paper emphasizes the cultural norms that underpin China’s fisheries management – norms that are often overlooked and misunderstood by Western scientists. “China will follow its own cultural norms in governing its fisheries resources,” observed Roz Naylor, FSE Director and William Wrigley Professor in Earth System Science at Stanford University. “Understanding cultural differences will promote a stronger international community in marine science and sustainable fisheries management.”

As China accounts for almost one-fifth of global catch volume, it has made great efforts to carry out conservation and management of fisheries resources by adopting and practicing various measures over the past three decades. The government is introducing a series of new programs for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, with greater traceability and accountability in marine resource management and area controls on coastal development. The most recent plan notably includes marine ecosystem protection as a significant component of the central government’s environmental agenda.

The timing of this research comes at a unique phase in China’s fisheries conservation strategy as they recently introduced specific goals for both the Ocean and Fisheries Five-Year Plans. “The Chinese government is poised to take serious action on marine ecosystem management,” Cao said. “Time is of the essence.”

Although the paper’s authors view China’s efforts as a signal of dedication toward furthering fisheries conservation, they hope their perspective paper helps highlight the need for true institutional reform in order to see the Chinese government’s goals realized.

 “Fisheries management and resource conservation is a complex undertaking. To rebuild China's depleted fisheries, serious institutional reforms are needed. The road ahead is still long,” said co-author Yingqi Zhou from Shanghai Ocean University.

Ling Cao is a research scholar with the Center on Food Security and the Environment, and a faculty member of the Institute of Oceanography at Shanghai Jiaotong University.

Rosamond Naylor is the director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment, William Wrigley Professor of Earth System Science at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

The translated Chinese version titled "Marine Fisheries Reform in Our Country: Review and Recommendations" can be found at China Ocean News.