Chishan Group Reactivates Idle Chinese Shipyard, Adding to New Capacity
The Chishan Group, a leading operator in China's distant-water fishing fleet and an alleged user of Uighur forced labor, has bought its own shipyard in Rongcheng, Shandong Province.
On July 22, Chishan Group closed on the acquisition of Shandong Baibuting Shipbuilding, a sizeable yard in Rongcheng that has been idle for years. It began life as Rongcheng Haida Shipbuilding in 1953, the early years of the Mao era, and specialized in vessels for China's fast-growing fishing fleet. In 2007, it was acquired by Wuhan Baibuting Group - a real estate and industrial conglomerate - and renamed Shandong Baibuting Shipbuilding.
Baibuting Group planned to grow the yard with a focus on small bulkers and freighters, but the purchase was ill-timed to the business cycle. With the onset of the Great Recession, shipbuilding demand fell, and by 2012 the company was taking in no new orders. Clarksons data suggests that its last merchant ship delivery took place in 2013. Recent satellite imaging of the site confirms that it has been unoccupied and idle, with no signs of active construction or staged materials.
The Shandong Baibuting facility is a slipway yard with no graving docks, and is capable of building and launching vessels of up to about 35,000 dwt, according to local media. Under Chishan's ownership, it will be renamed Shandong Fulton Shipbuilding, and will be retooled to compete for regional and national business. It is Chishan's first venture into shipbuilding.
Shandong Fulton Shipbuilding is about an hour and a half north by road from one of Chishan's largest installations, the Rongsheng Haibo Seafood processing complex. In 2022, the Outlaw Ocean Project found extensive evidence of the use of ethnic Uighur forced labor at this site.
China's government encourages the resettlement of participants in its involuntary reeducation program in Xinjiang, a majority-Muslim region in China's northeast where Beijing has made an all-out effort to assert political and cultural control for the past nine years. Multiple internal company newsletters - available to the public on Chishan's own website - discussed the arrival and integration of a large cohort of Uighur workers from Xinjiang, some 2,000 miles away from Shandong. Outlaw Ocean also found extensive social media video footage created by ethnic Uighurs showing their work and life at the Rongsheng Haibo plant.
The U.S. government prohibits any imports of goods produced by Uighur labor due to human rights concerns; several American importers stopped buying Rongsheng Haibo's squid after the Outlaw Ocean Project's report was published. (Chishan and its subsidiaries have denied employing any personnel from Xinjiang.)
The Outlaw Ocean team also connected Chishan's distant-water fleet to illegal fishing off the coast of North Korea, a violation of UN sanctions. Chishan vessels have also been linked to suspected labor rights and fishing rights abuses in operations off Argentina, a rich squid-fishing region where the Chinese fleet has repeatedly squared off with local authorities.
China's distant-water fleet is currently struggling due to high cost pressures, according to the Chinese agriculture ministry. In a memo distributed to state and local governments in January, the ministry recommended easing immigration controls for foreign (typically Indonesian) workers on Chinese fishing boats, speeding up subsidy payments, and encouraging new construction to replace aging distant-water vessels. By contrast, China's shipbuilding sector is booming: Chinese yards are winning the majority of the world's orders by tonnage, and countless idled shipbuilding plants are coming back online, often under new ownership.
Top image: A fishing harbor and shipyard in Rongsheng, Shandong (TSVC1190 / CC BY SA 4.0)
