From the article of 'Petrel'
No.583 / June 2, 1996
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The 200-sea-mile zone and the Communist Party
Roaring for the enclosure of the fishery resources
Exposing own racialism and the following to the capital
Now in the Diet, the Ratification and the related bill of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea by which the 200-sea-mile (about 370km) is set as an exclusive economic zone are discussed.
In the representative questions at the Diet, the Communist Party emphasized as that, because the import of the marine products increasing rapidly and self-sufficiency decreasing, it is necessary to set and apply the 200-sea-mile in all aspects for "the rebuild of the Japanese fishery as an indispensable industry that defends the nation's foods, the region, and the national land", and carries the interview article of the managing staff of the National Association of Fisheries Cooperative Associations on all one side of "the Red Flag", and is campaigning for the agreement ratification.
However, the standpoint of the Communist Party is nothing but the reactionary try as enclose the fishery resources and the submarine underground resources that are joint properties of the human race to the home country.
<> The purpose of the Ocean Law Agreement
The Dietman Fujita of the Communist Party asserted that the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of the 200-sea-mile is "the measures of nature" in the House of Representatives plenary session on the 10th and criticized the attitude of the government for the loss of slowness.
"The important problem is that the Government in our country as an oceanic country not only has leaved the ratification of this agreement for a long time but also does not have done the all aspects application of the 200-sea-mile, especially on the fishery field because they have permited the indiscriminate fishing and the violation operation of South Korea and China and so on the surrounding fishery resources become declined, so they have brought provide damages and adverse effects to the parties concerned with fishery and the nation."
"To set the 200-mile economic zone according to the ratification of this agreement and the related bills this time, even though it is too late, it is the result by the strong demand and the movement of the persons concerned with fishery and is the measures of nature." ( 'The Red Flag' 5.20 )
The Communist Party protects the 200-sea-mile United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as "the fishery resources are preserved and controlled in the world".
However, the main purpose of the agreement is to enclose the fishery and the submarine underground resources around the home countries. It is clear to see the details of the 200-sea-mile problem in postwar days, too.
It was Chile to have declared the 200-sea-miles first.
The development of the mineral resources of the continental shelf came to be paid attention after the Second Great War, and in time of the United States having declared the bottom of the sea and the submarine underground resources and the fishery resources of the continental shelf the preservation waters in the year 45, Chile declared the 200-sea-mile to be territorial waters in the home country in the year 47 in the pretext of protecting the mineral resources and the fishery resources.
Peru and Ecuador continued to this and these three countries adopted "the Santiago Declaration" and declared the exercise of sovereignty and the jurisdiction right of the 200- sea-miles in 54.
Because the movements of the expansion of territorial waters and the expansion of the fishery jurisdiction right were becoming strong around Latin America, the conference aiming at international order of the ocean was held in the United Nations in 58. At the conference, the territorial waters, the open seas, the fishing rights on the open seas, and the problem of a continental shelf were discussed and "the four Agreements of the Geneva Oceanic Law" were concluded.
However, the conclusion was not obtained about the width in territorial waters that were the most important matter because the interests in each country conflicted, and there appeared the countries that set the territorial waters a 200-sea-miles, and the countries that set the economic waters and the fishery waters etc.
On the other hand, under the leadership of the new independent countries that became independent of the colony after the postwar days the demand of the review of current oceanic order has become strong, that is, they proposed to use the development profit for the economic development of the developing countries by developing the resources under international control because the submarine resources of the open seas is "Common property of the human race".
These demands reflected the nationalism of the developing countries.
The Third Oceanic Law Conference of the United Nations held in the circumstances was going to adopt the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea through the discussion of about 10 years in 82. Before this in 76, they agreed about the setting of the exclusive, economic zone of a 200-sea-miles.
Each country started to set the exclusive economic zone of a 200-sea-miles in the shape of taking the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in advance one after another.
Ireland first in 75, Canada and the European Community, the United States, and the Soviet Union set the 200-sea-mile fishing boundary in 77, and Japan enacted "the Tentative Measures Law concerning the fishing zone" and joined them, too.
As the result, 34 countries became to set the 200-sea-mile only in one year of 77. It is certain that the insistence to request the 200-sea-miles fishing zone have become an international tendency in 70's on the background of the decrease of the fishery resources. We have seen the fishery resources like being unlimited before.
However, the fishery resources have decreased rapidly by indiscriminate fishing by the development of the fishing method to make good use of the high-technologies such as the eradicative fishery with the trawl, the fishing group detector, and the high-speed boats etc.
For instance, in "Grand Banks" near the Newfoundland island in Canada that was the cod fishery of world-biggest before, the cods have been decreasing sharply because of indiscriminate fishing, and now it is in the state that the fishery for private is prohibited.
Thus, each country has intend to enclose the decreasing fishery resources to the home country.
According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, each country is supposed to set an exclusive economic zone within the range of the width from the territorial waters radical line to a 200-sea-miles and have the sovereignty right of the fishery resources in the waters.
In this case, each country is under the obligation to take some appropriate preservation and control measures of the fishery resources by determining the possible amount of fishing in the waters.
However, it is measures after all to prevent the fishery resources of the home country from being exhausted.
<> The conversion of the Japanese government attitude
The Communist Party criticizes the "Illegal fishery" of South Korea and China, and is pursuing the Japanese government because of looking on it, such as "the South Korea and China etc. are permitted the indiscriminate fishing and the violation operation and the resources of the fishery in the surrounding has been declined".
However, it is not only "the Indiscriminate fishing and the illegal operation" of present South Korea and China by which the fishery resources have been declined.
Japan is also one of the maximum responsible persons by whom the fishery resources not only the surrounding but also in the world have been declined.
Japan advances to the fishery all over the world as the first fishery country in the world before and has caught fish as if he owned the place.
Saying the relation to South Korea and China, Japan mobilized the fishing boat to the coast very limit territorial waters in China and South Korea until 70's and had been fishing actively mackerel, squid, Spanish mackerel, and tilefish, etc.
In the idea "the ocean is free", "the narrow territorial waters and the wide open seas" and "the freedom of the fishery in the open seas" were the principles before.
Though the idea "the ocean is free" was the thought of the free trade principle aiming at the expansion of the commodity circulation, the fishery capital of Japan has received a lot of favors from gthe freedom of the fishery".
However, it came the time to scotch the indiscriminate fishing age of Japan.
The Soviet Union had told the 200-sea-mile execution in the year 77, and in the shape of opposing to it, Japan enacted "the Tentative Measures Law concerning the fishing zone" and set the 200-sea-mile zone.
However, the government excluded the application of the 200-sea-mile to South Korea and China.
The reason was that if Japan would draw lines against South Korea, China, and Taiwan, it was foreseen naturally that South Korea and China also would draw lines of the 200-sea-mile to Japan, and if it would become so, the pelagic rolling net fleet and the trawlnet fleet of Japan fishing in the West Japan were also not able to fishing in the coast of South Korea and China.
Under the leadership of the fishery trader and the fishery capital doing
the pelagic rolling net and trawlnet fishery, the 200-sea-mile declaration of Japan assumed as the one narrowing the fishery and a severe, opposite movement are developed at that time.
Therefore, in shape of accepting the demand of the offshore fishery trader, the government does not apply the 200-sea-mile to the Japan Sea and the East China Sea from the Fukui Pref. offingin to the east longitude 135-degree west and connects "the Fishery Agreement" with South Korea and China and entrusted the operation to "the Independent restriction".
Though the Communist Party was criticizing only South Korea and China, there was the meaning that the fishery trader (offshore fishery) in Japan maintained the fishery around China and South Korea in the application exclusion of the 200-sea-mile.
It was in the year 83 when Japan that had insisted on the three-sea-mile in territorial waters had converted the attitude to the United Nations Ocianic Law ratification that finally included the setting of the 200-sea-mile economic zone, the year was the next year when this law had been adopted in the United Nations in 82.
In the circumstances that each country has set the 200-sea-mile and Japan has been shut out from the fishery in the foreign country, Japan also has converted the attitude to this law ratification by the reason that the acceptance of the United Nations Oceanic Law brings the nation profits.
<> The enclosure of the fishery and submarine resources
The Communist Party describes that the 200-sea-mile problem "connects directly the problem how to raise the self-sufficiency rate of marine products that occupy a big part of the food protein resources in the situation where the world food crisis is assumed" (ditto) and is clarifying that the purpose is the fishery resource securing for the home country.
The Communist Party is asserting to secure the fishery resources as a valuable protein source by enclosing the 200-sea-mile around Japan as an exclusive waters.However, is this not a complaint of the bourgeoisie?
The fishery resources and the mineral resources in the bottom of the sea and in the bottom of the sea underground as well as the resources of the land are originally not the one to belong to a specific country but a common properties of the human race.
People were able to move freely and to use the products of the land and the sea freely before in the age without the system of private ownership, in the age without the nation either.
However, when the system of private ownership was produced and the nation was created, the resources of the land were divided by the nation.
Now, the land was divided completely as a territory of the nations excluding only the South Pole.
As for the sea, though a vast part has still been left as "High seas", the movement of the area expansion has extended to this sea.
In the circumstances of the decrease in the fishery resources, and the discovery
of the important energy and mineral resources such as oil, natural gas, titanium, and manganese in the bottom of the sea, and in the bottom of the sea underground, and the development of the collection technology, each country has insisted on the expansion of the exclusive waters for the resources securing.
The attempt to enclose the fishery resources and the submarine mineral resources can do nothing but cause the confrontation between the bourgeois nations.
For instance, China ratified the Oceanic Law Agreement on the 15th.
Though it is in the future to set the concrete zone, the exclusive economic zone in China is reached about 3 millions ku and extends to about eight times of the current 12-sea-mile territorial waters when simply calculating.
However, so that China conflicts with Japan about the owning right of the Senkaku islands first, and conflicts with Vietnam and Philippines, and so on, also about the Paracel and Spratly islands where the oil resources lies under the ground in the surrounding, "About 1/3 of these is waters where the country in the surrounding also is insisting on right."
Concerning the overlapping waters with Japan that come out from the setting of the 200-sea-mile, Japan insists "the Middle Line Doctrine" to divide at the middle of the overlapping waters, on the contrary China insists to line based on the continental shelf, so both parties conflict over the advantageous lineing to the home country. "The China National Defense Report" carried recently the thesis saying "It is necessary to aim at the reinforcement of the navy power and the improvement of the strategy ability to obstruct the violation of the oceanic interests", that is, China become aggressive in the navy reinforcemant to secure thee oceanic interests.
On the other hand, the voice "It is necessary to reinforce the management of the lawless indiscriminate fishing" of the surrounding countries goes up from the fishermen also in Japan. If the 200-sea-mile are set, the exclusive economic zone in Japan enclosed in the sea to all sides will expand rapidly, and the problem of reinforcement of the guard system to defend this from "the violation of the foreign countries" will also come out one of these days. The insistence of the Communist Party named "It is necessary to clarify that Japan has naturally the restriction power to the foreign ships in the waters around
Japan "provokes the racialism and helps the dangerous maneuver of the armament reinforcement of the monopolistic capital and the reactionary power.
<> The following of the Communist Party to the capital
In addition, the Communist Party assumes it is insufficient only by the complete application of the 200-sea-mile for the maintenance and development of the Japanese fishery and is shouting "Restrict the import of the marine products".
"It decreases the fish value and gives a serious shock to the fishery management that the import of the marine products increases wildly and rapidly.
If the marine products imports would not be restricted, an irreparable situation with Japanese fishery that is weakening would be invited.
--- Now, a lot of persons related to the fishery wish for the control of the marine products imports and demand the invocation of the safe guard." (ditto)
Domestic outputs of fish and shellfish in Japan decreased from 11,460 thousands tons in the year 60 to 8,010 thousands tons in the year 93 because of the increase in the import by the reduction of the pelagic fishery by the setting of the 200-sea-mile in each country and by the appreciation of the yen.
The import doubles from 2,260 thousands tons to 4,790 thousands tons in this period.
As the result, the self-sufficiency rate (The feed and manure are excluded) decreases from 86% to 64%.Japan is the world-biggest import country of marine products now and the amount of the import reaches about 1700 billion yen, about 3/5 of oil that is the maximum imports.
Most is below the half-price of domestic products in the import price by the appreciation of the yen that continues since the year 85.
If the cheap overseas marine products can be imported, there is clearly no need to depend on the high domestic products purposely.
"Fish parting" of eating habits of Japan is said, and the pressing of the expensive fish and shellfish that is expensive twofold of the foreign country will promote people's "Fish parting" more and more far from the development of the fishery.
However, the Communist Party says, "It is necessary to secure the food of my country in my country". The bourgeois says "Food security", etc., and is expressing securing the food in preparation for the case where the import of the food is cut off by the intensification of the confrontation of the nations.
They cannot escape from such fear as long as they premise the world of the bourgeois who assumes the system of private ownership to be a base and the private profit pursuit to be a principle.
The Communist Party that advocates "Self-support of the food" is exposing to stand on a reactionary, bourgeois standpoint.
To begin with, is it not clear that the isolated nation from the world cannot exist?
Each country has strengthened the mutual dependence relation of economy under the development of capitalism.
In such circumstances, any country cannot go without trade. The power of production that develops exceeding the border and the mutual dependence of economy that becomes strong clarifies that it is necessary to overcome the bourgeois world divided to the race nation conflicting in interests, that is, the member of the world should achieve a true community cooperating mutually. All the resources on the earth such as the resources of the land and the fishery resources are the common properties to the human race and it is the one to be used so that the life of the human race may be improved and develop.
For this, it is necessary to eliminate imperialism and capitalism from the world.
The racialism of the Communist Party that says "Self-support of the food" as a national problem and insists on the enclosure of the resources by dividing the open seas is a betrayal to the standpoint of international unity of the workers.
(Kiichiro Taguchi)