For most of the twentieth century, distant-water fishing—much of which takes place on the high seas—was dominated by the Soviet Union, Japan, and Spain. But the collapse of the U.S.S.R., coupled with expanding environmental and labor regulations, caused these fleets to shrink. Since the sixties, though, there have been advances in refrigeration, satellite technology, engine efficiency, and radar. Vessels can now stay at sea for more than two years without returning to land. As a result, global seafood consumption has risen fivefold.
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- [note::Interesting - it seems this implies that seafood supply might induce demand?]

Squid fishing, or jigging, in particular, has grown with American appetites. Until the early seventies, Americans consumed squid in tiny amounts, mostly at niche restaurants on the coasts. But as overfishing depleted fish stocks the federal government encouraged fishermen to shift their focus to squid, whose stocks were still robust. In 1974, a business-school student named Paul Kalikstein published a master’s thesis asserting that Americans would prefer squid if it were breaded and fried. Promoters suggested calling it “calamari,” the Italian word, which made it sound more like a gourmet dish. (“Squid” is thought to be a sailors’ variant of “squirt,” a reference to squid ink.) By the nineties, chain restaurants across the Midwest were serving squid. Today, Americans eat a hundred thousand tons a year.
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- [note::How does squid welfare compare to other aquatic animals?]

The country now catches more than five billion pounds of seafood a year through distant-water fishing, the biggest portion of it squid. China’s seafood industry, which is estimated to be worth more than thirty-five billion dollars, accounts for a fifth of the international trade, and has helped create fifteen million jobs. The Chinese state owns much of the industry—including some twenty per cent of its squid ships—and oversees the rest through the Overseas Fisheries Association. Today, the nation consumes more than a third of the world’s fish.
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Aggressive fishing comes at an environmental cost. A third of the world’s stocks are overfished. Squid stocks, once robust, have declined dramatically. More than thirty countries, including China, have banned shark finning, but the practice persists. Chinese ships often catch hammerhead, oceanic whitetip, and blue sharks so that their fins can be used in shark-fin soup. In 2017, Ecuadorian authorities discovered at least six thousand illegally caught sharks on board a single reefer. Other marine species are being decimated, too. Vessels fishing for totoaba, a large fish whose swim bladder is highly prized in Chinese medicine, use nets that inadvertently entangle and drown vaquita porpoises, which live only in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. Researchers estimate that, as a result, there are now only some ten vaquitas left in existence. China has the world’s largest fleet of bottom trawlers, which drag nets across the seafloor, levelling coral reefs. Marine sediment stores large amounts of carbon, and, according to a recent study in Nature, bottom trawlers release almost a billion and a half tons of carbon dioxide each year—as much as that released by the entire aviation industry. China’s illicit fishing practices also rob poorer countries of their own resources. Off the coast of West Africa, where China maintains a fleet of hundreds of ships, illegal fishing has been estimated to cost the region more than nine billion dollars a year.
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Fishing is one of the world’s deadliest jobs—a recent study estimates that more than a hundred thousand workers die every year—and Chinese ships are among the most brutal. Recruiters often target desperate men in inland China and in poor countries. “If you are in debt, your family has shunned you, you don’t want to be looked down on, turn off your phone and stay far away from land,” an online advertisement in China reads. Some recruits are lured with promises of lucrative contracts, according to court documents and investigations by Chinese news outlets, only to discover that they incur a series of fees—sometimes amounting to more than a month’s wages—to cover expenses such as travel, job training, crew certifications, and protective workwear. Often, workers pay these fees by taking out loans from the manning agencies, creating a form of debt bondage. Companies confiscate passports and extract fines for leaving jobs, further trapping workers. And even those who are willing to risk penalties are sometimes in essence held captive on ships.
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