China is the leading contributor to world fisheries production.
This has been achieved by intensive exploitation. Of territorial and distant marine waters, by considerable development of mariculture, by extensive use and manipulation of freshwater fish stocks, and by extraordinary expansion and application of better techniques to freshwater culture. Marine capture fisheries were most important until the 1980s when, in response to overexploitation of wild stocks, emphasis shifted to aquaculture. By 1993, aquaculture accounted for more than half of China's fisheries production in spite of considerable expansion of its capture fisheries. The highest yields were from ponds, followed by reservoirs, lakes, and river channels.