China Flouts Int'l Law, Hurts American Fishermen: Belford Co-Op Owner

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — On Monday morning, Captain Richard Isaksen, president of the Belford Seafood Co-op, met with North Middletown's congressman to call for stricter scrutiny on seafood products imported from China.

The United States imports more than $2 billion in seafood products from China every year. But China's cheap labor practices and illegal fishing methods are hurting American commercial fishermen, said Isaksen.

Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ6), the Democrat who represents Keansburg/North Middletown/Belford, agrees:

"The flagrant disregard from the People's Republic of China for international and domestic laws allows China to export seafood that is often sold at low prices to establish a market advantage — and drive out American seafood producers," said Pallone.

Congressman Chris Smith, the Republican congressman who represents southern Middletown, has been speaking about this issue for some time now:

“China has created an unfair, unethical competitive advantage for itself in the fishing industry, as in so many other industries, because it utilizes forced labor, undercutting American fishermen,” said Smith in October.

According to Isaksen and both congressmen:

A significant portion of the seafood eaten by Americans is either caught by Chinese ships or processed in Chinese-owned facilities.

Imported Chinese fish and shellfish are not held to the same rigorous environmental and labor standards as American seafood, which hurts American fishing companies that have to comply with strict American fishing laws.

Not only that, but Chinese fishing boats illegally poach in Indian and Pacific ocean waters reserved for other countries. Over the past decade, the People's Republic of China has taken deceptive action to hide their illegal fishing activity, including poaching from other countries’ Exclusive Economic fishing Zones, said Pallone.

Plus, the life of a Chinese fishermen is modern day "slavery," both congressmen said: Tens of thousands of workers are trapped aboard Chinese fishing vessels, where they are forced to work and endure unsafe conditions. Many of these workers are trapped at sea for years, working under debt bondage, and forced to withstand abusive and neglectful working conditions. Many of those forced fishermen and fish processors are Uyghurs, a repressed ethnic minority in China.

This Congressional hearing in October, chaired by Congressman Smith, examined how China’s use of forced labor in deep sea fishing not only hurts the U.S. fishing industry, but is also rife with human rights violations.

"China's abuses have corrupted the entire (fishing) supply chain, from bait to plate,” said Smith, who has held more than 80 hearings on China’s alleged human rights abuses.

“Regrettably, we also learned how the U.S. government, as well as schools in various states, are subsidizing China’s forced labor fishing industry by purchasing tainted fish,” Smith continued. “Even with fish caught in U.S. waters, some 40 percent is shipped to China and then imported back to the United States.”

Pallone is currently calling for stricter U.S. screening of all seafood products that are imported from China. Read this letter he sent Dec. 4 to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to better scrutinize fish products imported from China: https://pallone.house.gov/site...