FYI it’s “dramatically improved” not “drastically improved”. Drastically has the connotation of something bad happening so it doesn’t make sense to drastically improve something, it’s like saying “horribly benefited”.

Not really, as people in some dialects do so horribly/terribly improved. Drastic doesn't even mean bad per se, it just means extreme.

The connotation of drastic always being negative is through common usage and not strict definition. See: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drastically

Using drastic in this instance is an appropriate, but rare, usage in a positive sense. You are correct that dramatic would be a more commonly used neutral synonym, but using drastic is technically just fine here. It is only slightly odd usage by common practice, but as a native english speaker I hardly noticed it until you pointed it out.

By using a less common word and outside of the common usage of that word, to my ear this adds emphasis, like reading the word in BOLD text or capitalized.

I think it is a very weird phrasing in this context

"drastically improved or completely eliminated"

because drastically often is a negative, improved often is a positive and increase, using a two word phrase were both words are essentially opposite of their common usage seems almost linguistic malpractice.

It would make much more sense to say either drastically decreased or dramatically decreased since the Or in the phrase indicates complete elimination.

Where are you getting this from? I've never heard this and I am a native speaker. Also none of the dictionaries I have access to mention this. E.g., one says:

> likely to have a strong or far-reaching effect; radical and extreme: a drastic reduction of staffing levels.

Points 2 and 3 kind of contradict themselves though, as China doesn't have access to deep sea (at least until the invasion of Taiwan or if China manage to take control of their claimed share of South China Sea).

China has the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet, and Chinese vessels fish far beyond China's coastal waters like in South America, West Africa, Indian Ocean.

That's an interesting fact but that does not tell me anything about the possibility it has of raising salmon in its own waters

Why would they need to do it in their own waters?

Because fish farms are generally stationary?

Is it not possible to build a floating farm in international waters?

The point is that a pen far away from the land might not be very practical/much more expensive to take care of

Seems like something that could be negotiated with other nations in a peaceful way, if fishing was the only concern. The sub fleet is the real concern though.

I don't know, but being stationary in deep water isn't trivial task. You can't just drop an anchor when you have 3000-4000m of depth below your feet.

They are doing both landlocked and mobile deep-sea methods farming with success. In typical Chinese fashion as they have done with Fruit and other food productions, I wouldn't be surprised if they could scale it 10x within 5 years. I doubt it will take away Norway's supply to Japan in the short term due to quality and trust issues. But export to China may be lowered.

You can farm fish outside territorial and exclusive economic zone waters. But in any event China has substantial EEZ waters: https://www.marineregions.org/gazetteer.php?p=details&id=848... Taiwan isn't much of a hindrance. For one thing, the Strait is 100 miles wide. And China's coast is much, much longer than Taiwan.

Check your map: with the exception a part of South China Sea that is a point of contention with Vietnam, China only has access to shallow water (For instance East China Sea is ~300m deep, which isn't significantly deeper than Norvay's Fjords).

On the contrary the eastern coast of Taiwan has access to very deep sea though.

(This is a well known geostrategic fact, as the small depths of Chinese water are a big weakness for their submarine fleet).

I assumed concentration is a bigger issue than just depth? If it’s done in open sea instead of fjords that also should be an improvement. Of course fish farming in entirely unprotected open sea waters might be trickier