Chinese research vessel sparks alarm in Palau after repeated incursions 13AUG26

 

The Ji Di was designed to push through polar sea ice. (U.S. Coast Guard Courtesy Photo)

THIS an interesting and informative report on the bold and blatant poking and probing by China of the territorial integrity of free nations in the Southern Pacific / Indo-Pacific and the diplomatic and military response of these nations and the alliances among them. So far the response is not impressive, and if these nations allow NOT MY pres drumpf/trump to determine and lead the response to China's aggression, well, just look at his illegal and immoral war with Iran for a preview of their near future. drumpf's/trump's "art of the deal" will be on public display this September as he licks Ji's ass at the White House. It will be interesting to see if the free nations of the Southern Pacific / Indo-Pacific unite to defy and defend against China or if they fold and become vassal states of the PRC. This from ABC / Australian Broadcasting Corporation.....

Chinese research vessel sparks alarm in Palau after repeated incursions

In the final days of May, a Chinese research vessel ventured 74 kilometres into Palau's waters and reportedly spent 14 hours moving slowly through the island nation's maritime zone.

With a bow built to push through a metre of Arctic sea ice, the 89-metre icebreaker Ji Di might have looked out of place in the warm waters of the North Pacific.

Exactly what it was doing remains unclear to Palau's President Surangel Whipps Jr.

"Their research vessels come into our EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) uninvited and do whatever they want," he said.

"What are they looking for, and what is the ultimate intention?"

Launched in 2024, the Ji Di was designed for environmental monitoring and surveying to respond to climate change, according to Chinese state media.

Its fleet of unmanned drones and underwater vehicles can map the sea floor and collect data on everything from undersea minerals, ocean currents and marine ecosystems.

Ji Di

Research vessel

China

Ministry of Natural Resources

89.95 m

15 knots

14,000 NM

60

Name:

Type of vessel:

Flag:

Owner:

Length:

Speed:

Range:

Crew:

Source: ccs.org.cn

ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser

But security experts fear the vessel and dozens of others like it might also be gathering intelligence for a military purpose, one that could aid Beijing in the event of a future conflict over Taiwan.

Exactly what it was doing remains unclear to Palau's President Surangel Whipps Jr.

"Their research vessels come into our EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) uninvited and do whatever they want," he said.

"What are they looking for, and what is the ultimate intention?"

Launched in 2024, the Ji Di was designed for environmental monitoring and surveying to respond to climate change, according to Chinese state media.

Its fleet of unmanned drones and underwater vehicles can map the sea floor and collect data on everything from undersea minerals, ocean currents and marine ecosystems.

Ji Di

Research vessel

China

Ministry of Natural Resources

89.95 m

15 knots

14,000 NM

60

Name:

Type of vessel:

Flag:

Owner:

Length:

Speed:

Range:

Crew:

Source: ccs.org.cn

ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser

But security experts fear the vessel and dozens of others like it might also be gathering intelligence for a military purpose, one that could aid Beijing in the event of a future conflict over Taiwan.

Exactly what it was doing remains unclear to Palau's President Surangel Whipps Jr.

"Their research vessels come into our EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) uninvited and do whatever they want," he said.

"What are they looking for, and what is the ultimate intention?"

Launched in 2024, the Ji Di was designed for environmental monitoring and surveying to respond to climate change, according to Chinese state media.

Its fleet of unmanned drones and underwater vehicles can map the sea floor and collect data on everything from undersea minerals, ocean currents and marine ecosystems.

Ji Di

Research vessel

China

Ministry of Natural Resources

89.95 m

15 knots

14,000 NM

60

Name:

Type of vessel:

Flag:

Owner:

Length:

Speed:

Range:

Crew:

Source: ccs.org.cn

ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser

But security experts fear the vessel and dozens of others like it might also be gathering intelligence for a military purpose, one that could aid Beijing in the event of a future conflict over Taiwan.

The Ji Di travelled roughly 74 kilometres into Palau's EEZ between May 30 and 31. (Micronesia Security Monitor)

Hidden agenda

The Ji Di's incursion was not an isolated incident for Palau.

Similar incidents were reported in 2018, 2024 and 2025, while in 2023 a Chinese vessel allegedly operated near Palau's fibre-optic cable.

The most recent incursion, according to Mr Whipps, came in July, shortly after China launched a ballistic missile from a submarine that flew over multiple Pacific islands.

The ABC was unable to independently confirm the incursion.

"They're surveying over the top of our fibre-optic cable, and they have gear in the water, so for us it's a security concern," Mr Whipps said.

Sixteen Chinese research vessels have been deployed into the north Pacific this year, according to the Pacific Centre of Island Security, a think tank that tracks vessels and geopolitical activity in the region.

Jennifer Parker, an adjunct professor of defence and security at the University of Western Australia, said while some vessels would be used for "pure science", the scale and location of China's activities also suggested they could be gathering intelligence to conduct submarine and anti-submarine warfare against the United States.

"If you look at where Hawaii and Guam are, where US subs are based, and how they would operate across the Western Pacific, you can see why waters around Palau are important," she said.

In 2024, an investigation by the Center for Strategic and International Studies into 64 Chinese research vessels found 80 per cent demonstrated suspicious behaviour or had organisational links suggesting involvement in advancing Beijing's geopolitical agenda.

The study said China had developed the largest fleet of civilian research vessels in the world, heavily concentrating its surveys in the South China Sea and western Pacific Ocean.

Science or spying?

The dual-use nature of research vessels can make their true purpose difficult to discern, because mapping the sea floor can serve both scientific and military objectives.

A 2025 study published in the journal Frontiers in Political Science noted that "unlike other countries, China doesn't distinguish between ships operating for naval survey, scientific research, or commercial purposes".

But the director of the Pacific Centre for Island Security, Leland Bettis, said there were clues in the vessels' patterns.

Mr Bettis said the Ji Di was tracked in May following a pattern suggesting it was mapping the ocean floor near Guam along a corridor likely used by US submarines.

"It's doing a lawnmower pattern, which is typical of oceanographic survey work," he said.

"The fact it's doing the lawn-mowing positioning directly off of Guam where US submarines are based underscores the potential for some of the dual use capabilities."

Leland Bettis said the Ji Di's "lawnmower" movement pattern is typical of oceanographic survey work. (Micronesia Security Monitor)

A recent Lowy Institute report into China's military said two of the main priorities of the People's Liberation Army were developing the forces needed to invade Taiwan and deterring or defeating a US intervention.

As a hub for military operations in the Pacific, Guam is home to multiple US nuclear submarines likely to be used as a staging area if the US intervened in a Taiwan conflict.

Mr Bettis said Chinese research vessels could be trying to track the "signatures" of US submarines or even planting listening devices.

"Increasingly we've seen the use of drones and other submersibles that float around or [are] managed by an operator to collect information," he said.

Ms Parker, who is also a former Australian anti-submarine warfare officer, said understanding the sea floor was critical for operating and hunting submarines.

She said detailed mapping helped submarines navigate terrain like underwater mountains and trenches.

The shape and depth of the seabed, along with ocean temperature, also affect how sound travels through the water column.

"The primary way you detect subs is through sound: passive by listening or active by putting sound in the water and getting it to bounce back," she said.

Playing by its own rules

Marine scientific research in another country's EEZ without permission is a breach of international law, said Ms Parker. 

But Palau's options to stop China entering its territorial waters are limited. 

In a diplomatic complaint to China, Palau said the incursion showed a disregard for its sovereignty and the "rules-based order" nations are supposed to follow.

Ms Parker said China had been operating under its own rules in its efforts to map vast expanses of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

"It is uncommon to see countries conducting survey operations in another country's EEZ without permission, and the only country I can think of that does this at scale is China," she said.

China, meanwhile, has defended the activities of its vessels in the Pacific, saying in July an alleged incursion near the Japanese island Okinawa was "legitimate, lawful and beyond reproach".

The ABC reached out to the Chinese embassy for comment.

Ms Parker said as China continued to project power across the Indo-Pacific, research vessels would likely become a more common sight.

"China has been doing this more across the Pacific and Indian Ocean, including in places just north of Papua New Guinea, so I think we'll see more of this," she said.

How Eight Pacific Island States Are Saving the World’s Tuna 5MAR21

AN amazing report on how conservation and business are working hand in hand benefitting the environment as well as the people of these small yet progressive nations. We will all do well to pay attention to the canned tuna we buy to make sure it is caught using sustainable methods in PNA controlled waters. From Foreign Policy.....

How Eight Pacific Island States Are Saving the World’s Tuna

They have created a strikingly successful scheme that prevents overfishing and raises local incomes at once.

BY CHRISTOPHER PALA

 | MARCH 5, 2021, 4:11 PM

They control the richest tuna waters on the planet, an area of the Pacific roughly one-and-a-half times the size of the United States. But 10 years ago, eight island states in whose waters most of the world’s canned tuna is fished were seeing almost none of the profits. In 2011, however, they scored a striking success for small-state diplomacy when they devised a system to raise the fees foreign fleets were paying them for the privilege of fishing in their exclusive economic zones, which extend 200 nautical miles off their coasts. At the time, all they got was a scandalously low fraction of the tuna’s value—as little as 2.5 percent.

Today, the eight island nations have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They increased their take tenfold—from $50 million in 2010 to around $500 million last year. Not only did they grow their income, but they also imposed controls that stabilized catch rates and prevented overfishing, a rare success story in a world where ravaging the oceans is still the brutal norm. “They’ve been very clever,” said Glen Holmes, an officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts’ international fisheries program.

Six members of the agreement are microstates scattered between the Philippines and Hawaii: Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Tuvalu. The other two are much bigger: Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, both closer to Australia.

The tuna fees have turned from relatively small change to serious income—and for some of the smaller states, it’s virtually the only non-aid source of foreign exchange. They were therefore highly motivated to make the system sustainable in the long run. For that, they had to make sure the foreign fleets did not do in their waters what they have done almost everywhere else: take too many fish, thereby reducing some populations like the bluefin tuna to 3 percent of their original numbers.

As a result, the group—formally known as the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA)—have become a global model showing how poor, culturally disparate, and isolated small countries can take on the likes of the United States, China, and the European Union—and win. Some are now saying other countries whose waters have been plundered by foreign fleets, such as the nations on West Africa’s coast, should copy the PNA and do the same. Others hope the weak international bodies trying to manage fishing in the Indian, Atlantic, and Eastern Pacific oceans will also emulate them in the decades ahead.

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The equatorial belt of the Western and Central Pacific is the single biggest tuna fishery in the world, worth around $6 billion. That’s because half the world’s skipjack tuna—a particularly tasty and prolific species—calls it home. About 1.5 million tons are fished there every year, virtually all of it ending up in cans. Canned tuna is one of the world’s most affordable proteins because it is caught by a method that is both relentlessly efficient and biologically absurd.

Like most tuna, skipjack—which average under 2 feet long and around 10 pounds—travel in schools. When they come across schools of smaller fish, such as anchovies, they drive them to the surface and gobble them up, attracting seabirds that are then spotted by sharp-eyed ship captains. Fishermen speed to the feeding frenzy and encircle it with huge nets, known as purse seines, that close up at the bottom and are craned into the ship’s hold. The catch is so big that the skipjack at the bottom get crushed, but no one cares because they will end up in small pieces in cans.

For reasons that are poorly understood, skipjack schools also like to congregate around floating objects—logs, barrels, anything. The purse seiners discovered that setting their nets around these objects yields even bigger catches, sometimes reaching 300 tons of fish at once, according to fisheries scientist John Hampton of the Pacific Community in New Caledonia.

But here’s the rub: While the skipjack schools catching anchovies swim mostly alone, the ones circling floating objects attract company—sharks, turtles, and juveniles of other tuna species—that make up 20 percent of the catch. About 3.3 percent of the total is immature bigeye tuna, Hampton explained. That doesn’t seem like much, but more than five times as many bigeyes are caught accidentally as juveniles around floating objects than as adults, which aren’t netted in purse seines but caught by hook-and-line vessels called longliners.

It so happens that when a bigeye grows to its full size of almost 6 feet and 250 pounds (and no longer hangs out around logs), its rich, buttery flavor makes it the most sought-after delicacy for sushi and sashimi lovers after the catastrophically overfished bluefin. Adult bigeye fetches around $6,600 a ton; juvenile bigeye, mixed with skipjack, a paltry $1,300, said Megan Bailey, a fisheries economist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

In other words, 80 percent of the bigeye die for nothing before they’ve even had a chance to reproduce—simply to line the pockets of the purse seiners who could easily forego floating objects and cast their nets around free-swimming schools of skipjack, which attract no hangers-on. Because canned bigeye doesn’t even taste good, juvenile bigeye end up as cat food or vaguely labeled “light tuna” sold in the developing world. The purse seiners would like to avoid catching them, but it’s irresistibly more profitable to catch skipjack around floating objects than in a free school.

In the early 2000s, things took a turn for the worse with the advent of the so-called fish-aggregating device (FAD)—a floating object with brains. A barrel or two and a bit of netting that attract the fish are equipped with a transponder that transmits its position in a code that only its owner can read.

Soon, they added echo-sounding that automatically estimates how many fish are below, their size, and often their species. Bingo! Fishing became a video game, where ship owners follow their FADs on screens in real time to see how many fish have congregated below each one and order the ship to hop from one to the other. Today, around 80 percent of skipjacks are caught around FADs, killing, in addition to young bigeye tuna, hundreds of other species, including sharks, turtles, and other fish, most of which are tossed overboard.

The scheme stabilized the bigeye population at a relatively healthy 38 percent of its original size.

Although fertile skipjack remained at a relatively healthy 44 percent of the unfished population, the stocks of more slowly reproducing bigeye plummeted.

A decade ago, faced with this situation, the eight members of the PNA (plus the Tokelau Islands, a New Zealand possession) jointly decided that any fishing in their waters would have to jettison the then-current system under which each vessel declared its catch and paid 5 percent of its value to the host country. PNA officials said that fishers grossly underreported their catch, effectively only paying 2.5 percent of its true value and contributing to uncontrolled overfishing of the stock.

Instead, the countries devised a new system known as the Vessel Day Scheme, where vessel owners would bid for each day they wanted to fish. Soon, the PNA countries set a minimum of $8,000 a day; today, the average is closer to $12,000. Under the new scheme, “we sell opportunities to fish, not fish,” said Ludwig Kumoru, the PNA’s CEO. They also banned the use of FADs for three months each year, reducing the senseless slaughter of young bigeye. The move cut the number of purse seiners from 300 to 250, though their daily catch increased on the back of technological advances. The scheme stabilized the bigeye population at a relatively healthy 38 percent of its original size, according to Hampton.

To capitalize on their success, PNA countries created a brand of canned tuna called Pacifical that contains only skipjack caught in free-swimming schools, which have close to zero bigeye bycatch. The brand is already popular in Germany, according to Rainer Froese, a scientist at the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany.

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Unlike many other small-country governments that suddenly got an oil bonanza or mining windfall and egregiously wasted or stole it, the PNA countries seem to be spending their bonus’ rather wisely, redistributing much of the new income among their populations.

Take Kiribati, a nation of only 117,000 people whose exclusive economic zone is about the size of India and the biggest of the group. The country saw its fishing income rise in the past decade from $27 million in 2008 to $160 million last year—even as it set aside around 11 percent of its EEZ as the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, where it eventually banned all fishing.

Kiribati’s extra income “has made a huge difference in the life of the people,” the country’s former president, Teburoro Tito, told Foreign Policy. He said there are now benefits for the unemployed, pensions for the elderly, stipends for students, and aid for the disabled. In addition, the current administration, led by President Taneti Maamau, has embarked on a bold program to put cash in the pockets of citizens by tripling the price of copra, dried coconut meat. The trees grow on virtually all of the country’s 33 atoll islands and are harvested by a large part of the population. Spending on health—Kiribati suffers from a high incidence of diabetes—and education has soared.

The government is also working on an ambitious plan to dredge sand from the inside lagoon of the ring-shaped atolls and raise the islands in the most populated areas to mitigate the effects of any future sea level rise. Normally, there is little reason to worry about Pacific atolls—storm waves will raise land levels naturally in unpopulated areas, scientists said. “PNA income has provided Kiribati a golden opportunity to show how robust adaptation work can be undertaken to secure the future of small island states,” Paul Kench, the dean of science at Simon Fraser University near Vancouver, Canada, wrote in an email. He is the lead scientist on a research project documenting how atolls react to sea level rise—they rise with it. “Such work would serve as a model for other atoll nations,” he wrote.

When financial and conservation goals coincide, even the unlikeliest players can score major victories.

Rashid Sumaila, a leading fisheries economist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, said the PNA model should be applied to West Africa, where nutrient-rich coastal waters produce exceptional amounts of fish. Unfortunately, he said, coastal states stretching from Mauritania to Nigeria have allowed foreign fleets—mostly Chinese and European ones—to ravage and vastly reduce their fish populations, paying them only between 4 and 8 percent of the landed value of their catch.

Sumaila suggests going to a similar system where vessel days are auctioned to the highest bidder and only boats that continuously report their positions are allowed to operate. That would achieve three goals, he said: “First, you can raise the license fees to a point where it can make a real difference to the economies of these countries. Second, you can reduce overfishing so the fish populations can grow back and local fishers can start getting more fish. And third, you can make a big dent in illegal fishing.”

Quentin Hanich, who studies fisheries governance at the University of Wollongong in Australia, said if the PNA has succeeded in limiting overfishing, “I see no reason why the tuna commissions managing the Indian, Atlantic, and Eastern Pacific fisheries couldn’t adopt their system.”

The PNA’s example shows that when financial and conservation goals coincide, even the unlikeliest players can score major victories.

Christopher Pala, a former New York Times contributor covering the Pacific and Central Asia, now lives in Washington, DC.

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No Welfare for Whalers This Year? from SEA SHEPHERD 26APR11

CUTTING CORPORATE WELFARE in Japan.......too bad that idea can't take hold in D.C.!!!
The Japanese whaling industry, otherwise known as the Institute for Cetacean Research, has been kicked off the dole this year.
The corporate welfare whale killers will most likely not be able to return to the Southern Ocean in December 2011. The Japanese government this week announced massive budget cuts to divert monies for the restoration needed to repair earthquake and tsunami damages and to help the people evacuated from the no-go zone around Fukushima. In addition, the ongoing crisis of keeping the nuclear reactors cooled is draining hundreds of millions of dollars from the government treasury.
This has resulted in cuts across the board, including child support, senior citizen support and pensions, and infrastructure repairs and maintenance.
However, the government bureaucrats of Japan are still driven by pride, anger and revenge. For this reason, Japan recently sent a delegation to Palau to pressure the Republic of Palau from working with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Japan has offered but not yet confirmed that they will supply Palau with a patrol boat and funds to operate it if Palau rejects the agreement with Sea Shepherd.
Sea Shepherd will be quite satisfied if Palau gets the support of Japan for the patrol vessel and funds. That will allow us to go onto other Pacific island nations to make similar offers, which hopefully will motivate Japan to respond with counter offers. We may be able to manipulate Japan into providing fishery patrol vessels to the entire South Pacific region.
So there is a small possibility that the government could still risk public outrage in Japan by once again subsidizing the Japanese whaling fleet. And if that happens, Sea Shepherd ships will once again return to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to continue our interventions against unlawful Japanese commercial whaling activities.
There have been a few critics who have been advising us to lay off Japan because of the recent disasters. The point is that Sea Shepherd interventions are not targeting the Japanese people. We are addressing unlawful activities – whale poachers in an area far from Japan, the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, where whales are supposedly protected by law.
Would the war against drug trafficking be put on hold if Colombia has an earthquake? Would we stop opposing shark finning by Chinese longliners off Latin America if China suffers an earthquake? The answer is “no.” Natural disasters cannot be used as a justification for illegal activity including the violations of international conservation law.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is dedicated to shutting down all illegal whaling activity by anyone, anywhere, for any reason. There can be no discrimination. Poaching is poaching and not only is it ethically wrong – it’s a crime!