Thousands of Chinese fishing vessels have been spotted assembling in large geometric formations in the East China Sea, a development that maritime and military experts say could signal Beijing testing its ability to coordinate civilian fleets during a potential regional crisis.
According to analysts tracking maritime data, the unusual activity was first noticed on December 25. Jason Wang, chief operating officer of satellite analytics firm, said he observed around 2,000 fishing boats forming two parallel inverted L-shaped lines, each stretching roughly 400 kilometres, about 300 kilometres northeast of Taiwan.
Wang identified the vessels using their Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals, GPS-like tracking data that commercial ships broadcast to avoid collisions.
The boats were positioned as close as 500 metres apart and held their formation for around 30 hours despite near gale-force winds before suddenly dispersing.
“Something didn’t look right to me because in nature very rarely do you see straight lines,” Wang told AFP.
“We’ve seen like two, 300, up to a thousand (Chinese fishing boats congregate), but anything exceeding a thousand I thought was unusual,” he added.
Experts according to a AFP report say the scale of the operation is unprecedented.
Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said he had never seen such a concentration of Chinese fishing vessels outside port areas.
INVESTIGATION: Thousands of Chinese fishing boats have been massing in geometric formations in the East China Sea, in coordinated actions that experts believe are part of Beijing’s preparations for a potential regional crisis or conflicthttps://t.co/pH3RxBpBUo pic.twitter.com/FYpnO3N3Wa
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) March 13, 2026
“I’ve never seen a massing of Chinese fishing boats in these numbers anywhere outside of port ever,” Poling said.
China operates one of the world’s largest fishing fleets across the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and South China Sea, competing with fishermen from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. However, experts widely believe the vessels involved in these formations were not engaged in fishing.
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“I’ve sailed around the entire world and I’ve not seen fishermen operating in that proximity to each other, in that degree of concentration,” said Jennifer Parker, a former Australian naval warfare officer and now an Expert Associate at the National Security College of the Australian National University.
“They’re definitely not fishing,” she said.
David Kroodsma, chief scientist at Global Fishing Watch, said the activity appeared “highly coordinated” and suggested vessels may have been instructed not to fish in specific areas.
“Most of the time when you see lines of boats, it’s because they’re right up against some boundary where they’re not allowed to be,” Kroodsma said.
Analysis by maritime intelligence firms and satellite imagery confirmed the vessels were real and not the result of AIS signal manipulation, commonly known as spoofing.
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“We’ve had enough other corroborating data… to confirm that those vessels were clearly out there,” Poling said.
Some analysts according to AFP believe the manoeuvres may have been a test of China’s ability to mobilise its civilian fishing fleet for military-related operations.
AFP reported that the experts say such fleets could play a supporting role in a conflict scenario, including a blockade or invasion of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory and has threatened to seize by force if necessary.
Many analysts believe the vessels involved may be part of China’s so-called maritime militia, fishing fleets trained to assist military and coast guard operations.
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