alt Hacker News> As for fish, we prefer to maintain sustainable local fish stocks, and choose import.
There's hard evidence for this in the form of a map [1]. The light pixels close to the Australian coastline are Australian vessels fishing close in. The solid light areas further from the coast are other countries' vessels stripping the ocean bare. It's particularly obvious to the north east of Australia, where the solid line is the edge of Australia's exclusive economic zone. Minimal activity (dark) inside the zone, being stripped bare (light) outside the zone.
China may be listed as self-sufficient in fish, but its fish are not coming from near China [2]. Mind you, Australia's not helping if it's just buying from countries that are stripping stocks.
[1] https://globalfishingwatch.org/map/index?longitude=126.00884...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-19/how-china-is-plunderi...
> We're screwed on coffee and chocolate.
If things get desperate, AU does have small coffee and cacao goring industries!
>China may be listed as self-sufficient in fish, but its fish are not coming from near China
PRC fishing is ~85% domestic aquaculture. THE HIGHEST RATIO OF SUSTAINABLE AQUACULTURE IN THE WROLD.
Of 15% remaining wild catch, ~50% is from east sea, i.e. PRC coast. So ~95% self sufficiency. ~98% including SCS, i.e. PRC definition of sovereign waters. Functionally, self sufficiency is at 100%, since PRC large aquaculture exporter.
All the distant fishing drama/propaganda is just 2-5% of PRC fishing, which per capita they underfish relative other major fishing distant water fishing actors like JP, SKR, TW, Spain etc. For reference PRC distant water catches like 1.5kg per capita, the others 3-30kg+, i.e. 2-20x PRC. TLDR is PRC is the largest aquaculture producer (absolute&relative) that also grossly under extracts from global commons relative to other DWF, unless one thinks PRC citizens entitled to less fish.