China News Service, March 9th. According to the official Weibo of the Ministry of Emergency Management on the 9th, the supervision and inspection team of the State Council Safety Committee found that the local townships had irregular ship management problems during this round of inspections in Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province.

  A random inspection by the supervision and inspection team found that a fishing vessel numbered "Yuexu 23016" had its "Automatic Vessel Identification System" (referred to as "AIS system") invalid, and the name and identification code of the fishing vessel were not marked on the AIS equipment.

After the supervision and inspection team inquired about the AIS information of the ship, it was found that the information of the ship stayed on May 13, 2021, and has been disconnected since then.

  Amendment (11) of the Criminal Law clearly stipulates that: shutting down or destroying monitoring, alarming, protection, life-saving equipment, facilities that are directly related to production safety... if there is a real danger of serious casualty accidents or other serious consequences, shall be sentenced to a fixed-term of not more than one year imprisonment, criminal detention or control.

This means that unauthorized removal and shutdown of AIS equipment may constitute a criminal offence.

Screenshot of the official Weibo of the Emergency Management Department