According to local press reports, Kenya has opted out of banning imported Chinese fish, a prohibition that had been considered to protect the local industry, because the African nation is facing a fish shortage.Kenya’s Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya, Kenya has more than 600 kilometers of coastline on the Indian Ocean, and it claims 22 kilometers of territorial waters, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Beyond that, Kenya, like many other nations, claims an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 370 kilometers.An EEZ is reserved to a coastal country under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). According to UNCLOS, the coastal country retains “special rights to exploration and use of marine resources, but the water’s surface remains international territory.”Kenya’s “marine fisheries can be classified into two subsectors: the coastal artisanal fishery, and the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) fishery,” according to the U.N.’s FAO website. “A basic feature of the coastal fishery is the largely subsistence and artisanal nature of the fishers who operate small craft propelled by wind sails and manual paddles. The EEZ fishery, on the other hand, is characterized by distant-water fishing vessels which exploit target species mainly with purse-seines and long-lines.”China has the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet, which it says it will cap at 3,000 vessels, according to VOA reporting. But a U.S. Coast Guard report says an additional fleet of 3,000 ships of the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia “actively carries out aggressive behavior on the high seas and in sovereign waters of other nations” in pursuit of China’s maritime interests.A British research center estimates China’s total fleet size is nearly 17,000 vessels when Chinese ships that fly the flags of other nations are included.The U.S. Coast Guard report, citing a U.N. statistic, says 93% of the world’s marine fish stocks are fully exploited, overexploited or significantly depleted.  
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