Just as it was once said of the British Empire, it is now said that “the sun never sets” on Taiwan’s fishing empire. The tuna, squid, and saury industries have all taken their turn in the spotlight.

A Taiwanese ship that has just come back from half a year of squid fishing is being refitted at a fishing harbor in Kaohsiung to spend the remaining six months of the year in the Northern Pacific catching saury.

The long-line tuna fishing industry was the earliest to develop, and still accounts for the largest share of production value. Taiwan has nearly 400 ships of 100 tons or more working the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans all year round.

Long-line fishing employs a main line tens of kilometers long, to which are attached floaters, branch lines, and fishing hooks. The hooks are sunk to a depth of several hundred meters to catch tuna. This method of fishing was introduced into Taiwan during the era of Japanese rule. The ships were based in Kao­hsiung, and operations ranged into the Indian Ocean.

In the mid-1950s, with Taiwan’s coastal fisheries exhausted, operators turned their attention to the distant-water long-line tuna fishing business. American aid and international loans provided timely funding for ship construction, and the long-line tuna fleet took shape. Statistics from the Taiwan Tuna Association show that in 1960 there were only 23 ships of 100 or more tons in this trade, but by 1970 the number had grown to nearly 400, and operations encompassed the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. But the industry, most of whose catch was exported to the US or Thailand for canning, still didn’t generate much economic value.

In the 1970s, operators imported new technologies for deepwater long-line fishing and super-low-temperature freezing, and it was only then that Taiwan really entered its golden age of long-line tuna fishing. The new deepwater capability allowed ships to target big-eye and yellow-fin tuna, and the low-temperature technology meant that after being quick-frozen at –60°C, more than 90% of the catch could be directly transferred at sea for shipment to Japan, where it is mainly consumed as sa­shimi. These changes drastically increased the value-added of the catch.

Take the big-eye tuna, whose unit price is highest, as an example. Data from Japanese customs shows that in recent years 40–50% of imports have come from Taiwan, far ahead of mainland China (about 20%) and Korea (10%). Chen Te-tsai, the chairman of the Huang Ming Fishery Corporation, reveals that recently his super-low-temperature long-line fishing boat Hong­sheng, putting in at Tahiti, received ¥960 per kilo for big-eye tuna transferred directly to ships for transport to Japan, much more than the ¥784 average price that prevailed from January to April of 2011.

That the long-line tuna catch is of exceptional worth in terms of export earnings is shown in the contrast between the relatively low volume of the catch versus its very high value. Statistics from the Fisheries Agency of the ROC Council of Agriculture show that Taiwan’s long-line tuna catch (about 210,000 metric tons per annum over the last three years) accounts for only 30% of the volume of the country’s entire distant-water fishing industry, but its annual value (averaging about NT$26.6 billion over the same period) accounts for an impressive 70% of the total value of this industry.

A long-line tuna fishing ship from Taiwan plowing ahead toward fishing grounds in the Indian Ocean.

“Without distant-water fisheries, there would be no distant-water fishing industry.” This simple formula sums up the squid fishing industry quite well.

Taiwanese have long been consumers of squid—squid stew is one of the most popular traditional foods here—but in the early days Taiwan’s squid came entirely from imports. In the early 1970s, however, with funding from the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, Taiwan’s first squid fishing ship, the Rong­zhong, put to sea. After trial operations in waters off Japan and New Zealand, operations were extended into the Northwestern Pacific. In this early period, development went quite smoothly.

Eventually, however, as new international rules governing marine rights came into effect, one country after another declared “exclusive economic zones” extending 200 nautical miles from their coasts, at which point Taiwan’s fishing industry hit a wall, and ambitions had to be curtailed.

In the 1980s, operators shifted their attention to the Southwest Atlantic, successfully exploiting fisheries off of Argentina and the UK-ruled Falkland Islands. Construction of large squid-fishing ships followed, and within ten years, there were more than 100 vessels in the 700-ton class or larger. Larger fleets were organized, and the volume of Taiwan’s annual squid catch surpassed 270,000 metric tons.

Oddly enough, as Shih Chiao-ming, the chairman of the Taiwan Squid Fishery Association, explains, in recent years the catch has fluctuated sharply in the seas off Argentina. It was 500,000-plus metric tons in 2007–2008, fell to between 300,000 and 400,000 in 2009 and 2010, and then leaped to over 600,000 in 2011. Asked the reason, Shih ventures: “Who knows? It could be connected to climate change, or maybe fishermen just got smarter, ships got more numerous, and equipment got better, leading to over-fishing in the past.”

Whatever the case may be, the Southwest Atlantic is still the main fishing grounds for squid ships. Of the 103 ships in Taiwan’s squid fleet, this year 66 are operating around the Falklands and another 25 in waters off of Argentina. One such ship is the ­Shuenn Ching No. 1, belonging to Shun Hui Fishery Company president Chen Yun-lai. It has completed its 2012 operations off the Falklands, where the season starts in January and ends in May, and will return to its home port of Kao­hsiung in June.

Interestingly, just as it is representative of the squid industry, which is the second pillar of Taiwan’s deep-sea fishing industry, the story of the ­Shuenn Ching No. 1 brings us neatly to the third pillar of Taiwan’s fishing industry: saury. This is because the ­Shuenn Ching No. 1 is both a squid fishing boat and a saury fishing boat.

Production value by type of fishery, 2001–2010/source: Fisheries Agency

Taiwan fishing boats began heading to the waters off Japan to catch saury back in the 1970s. At that time the saury industry merely provided bait for the long-line tuna fishing industry; no one anticipated that it would become the sister industry to squid fishing. But as it happens, the saury fishing season in the North Pacific lasts from June to December, exactly matching the off-season of the Southwest Atlantic squid fishery. Owners can simply refit their squid boats with the stick-held dip-net gear needed for saury without affecting squid operations in the least. Of the 103 vessels now registered with the Taiwan Squid Fishery Association, 80 are refitted in this way.

It’s impressive enough that, as Shih ­Chiao-ming notes, “Taiwan’s saury catch is the second highest in the world, behind only Japan’s.” But when you consider that Japan’s saury fishing industry operates in coastal and inshore areas around that nation, whereas Taiwan’s operates far from home, Taiwan in fact catches more saury through distant-water fishing than any other country on earth.

Shih states that more than 70% of the annual saury haul is exported. Domestic demand is only about 30,000 metric tons. Meanwhile, statistics from the Fisheries Agency tell us that the combined squid-saury catch has averaged 230,000 metric tons per annum over the last decade. This accounts for 30% of the distant-water fishing industry by volume, albeit only 10% in terms of value (NT$4.1 billion).

Production and value by major species, 2010/source: Fisheries Agency

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which was concluded in 1982 and entered into force in 1994, each country can declare an “exclusive economic zone” (EEZ) extending 200 nautical miles out to sea from its shoreline. Ships from other countries that fish in an EEZ must pay royalties to the host country. Taiwan’s distant-water fishing industry has over 2000 ships operating worldwide, and although they pay no fees for fish caught on the “high seas” (which belong to no state), they still pay a considerable amount in royalties each year.

Taiwan Tuna Association chairman Hsieh Wen-jung explains that in the long-line tuna fishing industry, which has the biggest fleet, while the coastal nations that control local marine resources collect fees at different levels, the cumulative amount is “several hundred million NT dollars per year.”

Chen Te-tsai, who is also director of the Atlantic Operational­ Committee at the TTA, and who has seven ships himself operating in the three main ocean areas, states that on average each ship in the Pacific pays fees of NT$1.2 million per year, each one in the Atlantic NT$1.1 million, and each one in the Indian Ocean NT$800,000. Chen adds that most of the time ships operate on the high seas, “but the fishing seasons are fixed by the coastal nations that control the resources, so when the time comes, we go straight in to work. Even then we only get in two or three months of fishing, although we pay fees for the whole year.”

And paying up doesn’t even necessarily pay off. Hsieh Wen-jung notes that some ships fork over the annual fee but then never enter the recipient country’s waters all year. “The Seychelles [an island state off of Africa] charges a fee of over NT$1 million per year, but if the fishing conditions deteriorate or there are pirates, then their waters are closed to outside ships.”

But while these fees are a cost as far as shipowners are concerned, they are a boon for host states. “Pacific island states like Fiji and Nauru depend almost entirely on our fishing royalties,” ­Hsieh says. He relates that in the Seychelles, for example, with a population of less than 100,000, for every 100 dollars of per-capita income, three dollars come from fishing fees paid by Taiwan vessels.

Taiwan’s enormous long-line tuna fishing fleet makes such a large contribution to the economies of coastal resource nations that we cannot be ignored by international fishing organizations. Under new rules for membership in such organizations that were adopted in 1995, Taiwan can participate in the main international fisheries management and conservation organizations as a “fishing entity.” The fishing industry thus gives Taiwan an entrée to forums for international dialogue.

For example, in 2004 Taiwan became a founding member of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, marking the first time since the ROC’s withdrawal from the United Nations in 1971 that Taiwan has participated in the founding of an international organization.

Hsieh Wen-jung, noting that our country is a major player on the oceanic fishing stage, contends that international fisheries management organizations that don’t include Taiwan risk irrelevance. For tuna in particular, “You can’t talk about the global tuna fishing industry without including Taiwan.” Hsieh adds: “This really irks mainland China!”

Back in 2007, at a meeting of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, which is affiliated with the United Nations, Taiwan’s proposed entry became the subject of dispute. Some members went so far as to suggest that the IOTC cut its ties with the UN just to make it easier for Taiwan to become a member. According to reports in the Taiwan print media from that time, an unnamed IOTC official told the international media: “It would be crazy to undertake a conservation plan for Indian Ocean tuna without inviting a country with a huge tuna fishing fleet to participate.” As Hsieh understands the story, originally mainland China privately agreed to admit Taiwan, but when the matter got into the media, it became a matter of extreme diplomatic sensitivity for the mainland, and so they changed their stance and pressured other members to kill the proposal, leaving Taiwan outside the organization after all.

Besides fishing conditions, there are two things that fishermen worry about the most: skyrocketing fuel prices, and pirates. In recent years, the industry has run up against both of these.

Chen Te-tsai says that two years ago the price of fuel was US$700 per metric ton, but now it has climbed to US$1200. With each boat using about three tons a day, that means an extra NT$45,000 out of pocket each and every day.

As for pirates, Chen has personal experience of their impact. His ship Hong­sheng, a 450-ton vessel, formerly worked the Indian Ocean. But last year, the ROC Fisheries Agency, noting the rampant piracy around Somalia, put a ban on fishing in that area, and the Hong­sheng switched its operations over to the Pacific for a year. Records from the Fisheries Agency show that since 2005 there have been five cases of Taiwanese vessels being hijacked by Somali pirates. The most violent incident occurred in 2010, when pirates captured the Chun­ri­cai No. 68 and converted it into a mother ship for launching attacks on other ships. In an exchange of fire with a US warship, the captain of the Chun­ri­cai No. 68, who was being held prisoner, was killed, and the ship itself was sunk.

Hsieh Wen-jung expresses the hope that the government will permit distant-water fishing vessels to arm themselves for self-defense. Asked about this, Fisheries Agency director-general James Sha said that in the future the government will amend the law in this direction.

After five or six decades of development, Taiwan’s distant-water fishing industry is now considered “king of the hill”—a nation against whom all wannabe fishing powers have to measure themselves.

Over the last decade, mainland China has been quite active in expanding its distant-water fishing industry. Their government subsidizes fuel costs and has incentives to reward the building of ships. Hsieh suggests, “Their real goal is to overtake Taiwan,” because they can see how significant the distant-water fishing industry is for Taiwan diplomatically, strategically, and economically.

Although Taiwan is surrounded on all sides by water, there is rather a conservative mindset here when it comes to thinking about the seas, and not much vision. The question that people on the business end of distant-water fishing want answered is: The mainland seems to have a very clear idea of what it wants for the future, but does our government have a clear-cut strategy of its own?