Sino-Vietnamese Fishery Agreement for the Gulf of Tonkin On 25 December 2000, China and Vietnam officially signed an Agreement on Fishery Cooperation in the Gulf of Tonkin (the Beibu Gulf in Chinese, and the Bac Bo Gulf in Vietnamese)' together with an Agreement on Maritime Boundary Delimitation in the Gulf of Tonkin between the two countries.? This is the latest fishery agreement in East Asia aimed at sustainable management of fishery resources in the sea areas under national jurisdiction? This paper attempts to review and assess this newly adopted fishery agreement. Background The Gulf of Tonkin is a shared water area between China and Vietnam of 44,238 square kilometres (about 24,000 square nautical miles). It is categorised as a semi-enclosed gulf because it is embraced by the northern part of Vietnam, China's Guangxi coastal area, Leizhou Peninsula and Hainan Island. The gulf has an average depth of 38 metres and the maximum depth is no more than 90 metres.4 Marine living resources are abundant in the Gulf of Tonkin due to some favourable natural factors, such as the nutrient-rich discharges from numerous river systems, and year-round warm water temperature. The gulf is rich in organic substances and highly saline, and the waters along the coasts are highly productive, containing abundant plankton and other organisms totaling up to 1,150 types. It therefore provides ideal conditions for fish to spawn, breed, feed
1 The Chinese name for the Gulf of Tonkin is simply borrowed from the Vietnamese name. The literal meaning of the word "heibu" or "huo bo" means "northern". For Vietnam, the Gulf of Tonkin is geographically a northern bay, but for China it is not. An unofficial translation of the Agreement is included below as Appendix 1. This Agreement is not available at the time of writing. For delimitation issues before this Agreement, see Zou Keyuan, "Maritime Boundary Delimitation in the Gulf of Tonkin", (1999) 30 Ocean and Internatio/1al 235-254. 3 Development Luw, China recently signed fishery agreements with Japan in November 1997 and with South Korea in 2000. and South Korea their new in November 1998. 4 August Japan signed fishery agreement See "Beibu Gulf in Encyclopedia Sinh'a: Geography of' China (Beijing, China Encyclopedia Press, 1993) (in Chinese), p. 23.
127 128 and mature.5 It is reported that there are 928 species of fish in the gulf and among them more than 20 are economic and commercial/' The main species include snapper, grouper, catfish, croaker, shrimp and lobster.7 The fishing grounds in the Gulf of Tonkin are traditional fishing areas for both the Chinese and the Vietnamese. Indeed, the Beibu Fishing Ground is one of the four largest fishing grounds in China.' On the other hand, due to the geographical conditions, the distribution of the fishery resources is not even between the two countries. The majority of the resources are located in the waters adjacent to the Vietnamese side. Recently, scientific data has shown that the fishery resources in the Beibu Gulf have been over-exploited.9 Since the fishery resources in the Gulf of Tonkin are shared by China and Vietnam, bilateral cooperation in this regard is inevitable. The first fishery agreement between China and Vietnam was signed in 1957. The Agreement stipulated that the near offshore fishing grounds should be reserved for the adjacent coastal countries respectively, while the fishing grounds in the middle of the gulf were open to fishermen from both countries. In 1960, the 1957 Agreement was extended and a supplementary protocol to the Agreement was signed in 1961. These Agreements expired on 31 July 1963. In August 1963, the two countries signed a new fishery agreement which determined respective offshore limits and although special arrangements were made for a certain number of small fishing boats, the basic principle was that the fishing vessels from one side were not allowed to enter the area inside the limits of the other side. The 1963 Agreement expired in July 1969. In addition, China and Vietnam had also signed an agreement on the preservation of fishery resources in the Red River in 1962. '° Because of the deterioration of Sino-Vietnamese relations in the 1970s, however, there was no new fishery agreement between the two sides until the end of 2000. Both China and Vietnam are parties to the United Nations Convention on the
5 See Wu Shicun, "Sustainable Exploitation of the Fishery Resources of the Beibu Bay (the Gulf of Tonkin)", paper presented to the Conference "Human and Regional Security around the South China Sea" organised by the Centre for Development and the Environment of the of Oslo, 2 4 June 2000, 2. 6c' University Oslo, Norway, p. See Committee of Editors of the China Natural Resources Series, China Natural Resources Series: Ocean China Environmental Science Press, 351-352. 7 (Beijing, 1995)(in Chinese), pp. There is abundant literature on fishery resources in the Gulf of Tonkin. However, most of them are not written in English. For relevant information in English, see .T.R. Morgen and M.J. Valencia (eds.), Atlas .1i)i-Marine Policy in Southeast Asian Seas (Berkeley, University of California Press, 56-57. 8 1983), pp. See Zou Keyuan, "Towards Sustainable Management of China's Marine Fishery Resources: Law and Enforcement", 2 Asia Journal 296. 9 (1997) of' Environmental Wu explained this by four indicators: (a) the yield exceeds the maximum permitted catch; (b) density of resources has decreased and there has been exhaustion of some kinds of fishery resources; (c) the proportion of commercial fish has notably declined; and (d) the fish habitat environment has worsened. See Wu, note 5, 6-9. °I supra pp. See Huang Shuolin, The Lm\' nf? tl?eSea and Fishery Regulations (Beijing, China Agricultural Press, 1995)(in Chinese), pp. 124-125.