To avoid Golem's syndrome, management of China's fisheries is a must. Although its 1.3 billion population isn't growing at a very fast rate, it is adding millions of new consumers annually, increasing the demand for food, fish included.

Chinese fishermen have been fishing in lakes and rivers for 5,000 years, but only during the 20^th  and 21^st  centuries have developed marine fisheries, no doubt attracted by the nearly 3,000 species in its waters. In 2010, over 13 million people worked in fisheries, with about 7.5 million artisanal fishermen

Landings and market
China has by far the largest fishing industry in the world. China's annual fishery production has increased from 4.7 million mt in 1978 to 53.7 million mt in 2010, (a growth rate close to 8% p.a.). In 2009 it produced over 34% of world's total wild catch up to 16.78% of world production, and fish farming over 60%. With export value of over USD 13.8 billion, its aquatic products present its top agricultural export.

In 2009, consumption of aquatic products in China's urban and rural areas reached 15.5 and 5.3kg p.c. respectively, more than doubling in the past 20 years, including yellow croaker, red snapper, cod, squid, shrimp, and trepang. Dried trepang fetches extremely high prices as a delicacy and an aphrodisiac. Now overexploited, it's collected in shallow areas. The buying power of a growing middle class made China a major fish importer of premium fish. China has also a market for fish too small or difficult to process.

Fish farming
According to ancient scriptures, Chinese villagers were already trapping carp in artificial lakes formed when flooded rivers receded in the 5^th  century BC. Presently, FAO (2013), reports that of the over 50 million mt produced by world's aquaculture, China is now leading with some 31 million mt, its fish farming production having grown within five years by 10 million mt. Fish farms cover 7.28 million ha, 980,000 ha more than in 1999.

Gradually, aquaculture harvests exceeded wild catches. Exporting to the more populous nations, where consumption of fish keeps increasing, compensates for the rather stagnating demand in rich countries. Doubtless, as the Chinese grow richer they eat more high-value fish. In Southeast Asia, on the other hand, the demand for lower-value farmed fishes, such as carp and tilapia, would grow faster than that for the expensive species.

Fish processing
Apart from dealing with national production, the Chinese processing industry specialises in processing frozen or chilled fish shipped by sea, land or air from Western and Eastern Europe, and North America and re-sending them for marketing on Western markets.

Fisheries management
With accelerating development of fisheries, overfishing followed. In the late 1980s, the Chinese government took steps to reduce inshore fishing, where fishery resources appeared depleted, and embraced an input-based approach to fisheries management. In view of the fact that landings hadn't grow in parallel to the growth of the fleets, in 1999 the Chinese government proclaimed a moratorium on new fishing vessels, with a policy of relocating some 40,000 fishermen and scrapping about 8,000 fishing vessels. Later, in 2003, the government modified the boat-permit system, gradually reducing the fleet by 30,000 more.

Seasonal closures of trawling, stake net and gillnet fishing resulted in protests from neighbouring countries that claimed their own rights over the same areas as, for example, Vietnam, which claimed to share part of the marine area of the Spratlys and Paracel Islands.

Habitat problems
Since the 1950's, China has lost 50% of coastal wetlands, 57% of its mangrove areas, and 80% of its coral reefs, Since 2009 there has been concern for the marine habitat in China's inshore and offshore waters, some 50% of them graded as polluted. Also, from 2002 to 2009, 74,100 ha of land had been reclaimed from the sea, causing environment degradation and seafood pollution.

According to the  2011 China's Ocean Development Report  issued by the State Oceanic Administration of China, over 460 Chinese islands along the mainland coast have disappeared and half of China's coastline has been developed in the past decade. Furthermore, for a variety of reasons, rapid industrialisation in China's coastal regions has led to the establishment of a majority of heavily-polluting chemical, energy and transportation industries along China's coastline, as well as to offshore drilling for all-important energy sources. As a result, a wide range of pollutants are discharged into the sea. According to an official inspection in 2009 14 million tons of heavy metals were discharged, leading to degradation of the inshore marine, affecting the sustainability of inshore fishing.

Densely set fish farms, expanded over many inshore, protected and semi-protected areas, are harming the coastal marine habitats, spreading diseases and parasites to wild fish populations. Also, pollution in China's many rivers, lakes and ponds can be traced to some of its foodfish.

Offshore and distant waters
China's marine fishing fleet, the largest in the world, comprises (according to FAO) over one million vessels, of which 280,000 motorised, and almost 2,000 large oceanic vessels. Most of them fish China's extensive EEZ of about 2.3 million km²  spreading over four seas, (the Bohai, the Yellow, and the East and the South China Seas), shared also by China's neighbours, both Koreas, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Hence, the often unfriendly disputes and maritime tensions and clashes.

Chinese vessels are fishing legally off the coasts of S. America, Africa and Asia, but its fishing vessels also blamed for illegal fishing, among others for bluefin tuna in the Atlantic and in New Zealand's EEZ, often leading to serious maritime standoffs, with fishermen killed and detained, and vessels seized. With limited inshore resources and catch capacity, the trend to offshore and deepwater fishing will continue in the years to come, as outlined in the 12th Five Year Plan at both national and local levels. Thus, while fishing disputes between China and regional countries may intensify, China's distant water fishing would persevere and even intensify, playing important role in satisfying the population's swelling demand.