In Liaoning province, boat owners with similar experiences have gotten together and set up a public account as a type of self-insurance. Huang Shengkui of Yingkou said each member pays in 100,000 yuan or so. If one member is fined, money is allocated from the account to avert devastating damage to the boat owner.

"It's a kind of gambling. A way out of no ways," Huang said.

At sea, the bins are filled half with fish, half with ice. The unloading and transfer move quickly once the boats return to Shidao port. Photos by Cui Meng / China Daily

'How stupid is that?'

Meanwhile, Li said, the number of boats penalized for technical faults is rising, More than 20 percent of the boats with permits were fined because they did not meet the fishing regulations of South Korea - most commonly, misreporting the volume of fish caught and the size of the boat's hold, and using fishing nets with smaller holes than required.

South Korean coast guards inspected two of Wang's boats last April and fined them for not filling in their fishing logs properly. Both boats also were banned from South Korea's zone from Oct 16 to Nov 14.

"It feels like they began to pick on us this year over minor mistakes," Wang, 40, said in December. "My boats were fined for altering numbers of the catch a little bit, in a messy way. How stupid is that?"

They also said there was 5 kg of discrepancy in total volume when there was more than 600 kg of fish on board, Wang said. "They don't even allow errors of using different scales. Really, there is nothing we can say or do."

Wang owns 12 boats and each has a crew of 11 to 16. Many of them didn't even graduate from primary school, he said, so it's obvious that they are not good at paperwork.

Sticks vs hoses

"South Korea coast guards often ask crew members to get down on their knees with their hands behind their backs and shout at them during routine inspections," Lu Bing-long said. "They are very aggressive and sometimes use force. Basically, they treat Chinese fishermen as prisoners."

Lu, who owns 32 boats in Rongcheng, said some of his crew members came back and decided to quit because it's humiliating. They are also afraid the coast guards might one day threaten their lives with the weapons they carry.

"Even with permits, even when they have not broken any rules, Chinese fishing boats will run as fast as they can when they see South Korean coast guards coming because they fear being beaten up and fined," Lu said.

"Out of frustration, some will even use long wooden sticks or shovels to push away approaching South Korean law enforcement boats, while they use high-pressure water guns to slow the fishing boats down and try to get on board."

Two women knit fishing net at Shidao port. Under South Korea's standard, the holes in nets can be no smaller than 3.9 cm.Photos by Cui Meng / China Daily