China’s policies and practice on combatting IUU in distant water fisheries

China’s distant water fisheries(DWF)have made considerable progress since its entering into this industry in the 1980s.Though great efforts have been made to combat illegal,unregulated and unreported(IUU)fishing activities,there are still repeated IUU cases reported or documented by regional fisheries bodies and coastal countries.This article starts with an introduction to the latest development in China’s policies and practices in the past three decades,followed by an attempt to explore the reasons behind this haunting IUU problem.It is found that lack of concrete regulatory measures,ineffective policy implementation,and insufficient supervision and control are the main impediments to eliminate the on-going IUU problem.Therefore,the authors suggest fishery authorities in China have stronger willingness and determination to impose stricter supervision and control on DWF industry,but at the same time,gives more concern to fishermen by offering training courses to raise their awareness of law compliance and mitigate motivations to commit infraction.Only in such way would China promote healthy and sustainable development of DWF,and become a responsible major fishing nation as it aims to be.