As long as they are 200 nautical miles offshore, then it is fair game. That Reuters article reads like: "China did something; it must be bad."
But more importantly, specifically Chinese fishing vessels aren’t exactly innocent either. They go dark to go and fish in waters where fishing isn’t allowed including eco sensitive zones. Part of the problem with the dark fleet is “how much they fish”. Claiming 200 vessels are fishing while allowing 1000 vessels will obviously lead to overfishing.
Then there is the whole “illegal fishing” including but not limited to hunting sharks and other endangered species, using banned fishing practices, threatening local fishermen across the coast of Africa to corner parts of the fishing grounds etc.
All of this is well documented. So it’s not about China bad, it’s about them skirting the rules.
> But more importantly, specifically Chinese fishing vessels aren’t exactly innocent either. They go dark to go and fish in waters where fishing isn’t allowed including eco sensitive zones.
> The idea that international waters are available for anyone and everyone to exploit is just wild.
Edit: Order of magnitude also matters here. Chinese fishing fleet is much larger than all the nations you mentioned combined. Any nation taking that much from the oceans which are a globally shared resource and a lifeline for the planet should receive scrutiny and pushback, regardless of who they are.
To the surprise of absolutely no one.