China's Coast Guard has started cracking down on cross-sea and illegal cross-border fishing, as the summer fishing moratorium ended in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea.
At the beginning of September, the Coast Guard began regulating the number of fishing boats, aiming to guarantee legal, safe and orderly fishing, the Coast Guard told the Global Times on Thursday.
Coast Guard's vessels in the Sea of Japan, the East Sea, Northeast Liaoning, East Shandong and Jiangsu Provinces will operate in surrounding waters.
The campaign will primarily crack down on fishing boats operating outside their designated waters as well as outside China's border illegally, fishing boats which lack qualifications or certificates and those who violently resist law enforcers.
Penalties include fines and a reduction in subsidized fuel on minor cases, while criminal charges will be filed against more serious cases, according to the Coast Guard.
As of Wednesday, Coast Guard ships have logged 14,295 sea miles, supervised 930 fishing boats and stopped 120 for attempting to cross the border.
On August 1, hundreds of fishing boats sailed in China's Yellow Sea, Bohai Sea and the East China Sea after a two-month fishing off-season, the Xinhua News Agency reported on August 2.
A Chinese fisherman was shot dead in October 2014 by the South Korean Coast Guard in what authorities claimed was their crackdown on illegal fishing, Xinhua reported.
