The boats are believed to be potentially fishing illegally in one of the world’s most lucrative fishing grounds, according to a US conservation group.

Analysis by the group Oceana of a maritime tracking system used for safety and traffic monitoring found that more than half of the foreign ships fishing near Argentina had turned off their tracking, hiding their activities, with the Chinese fleet responsible for 66 per cent of those incidents, reports South China Morning Post.

About 800 vessels, over half of them from China, logged nearly 900,000 hours of visible fishing activity via the Automatic Identification System (AIS) within 20 nautical miles of Argentina’s waters between January 2018 and April 2021, according to Oceana’s report, published on Wednesday, it reported.

China has been facing criticisms over its aggressive stance against neighbours and encroaching in the territories of other nations, besides  engaging in business conflict with countries like Australia in recent times.