China expanded maritime militia to assert control in South China Sea: Report
WASHINGTON – China has deliberately and systematically expanded its maritime militia in the South China Sea over the last decade as part of its strategy to assert more control over the contested waters, according to a new report by an American think-tank.
Since China completed construction of its artificial island outposts in 2016, more militia boats have been deployed more frequently than ever before to the Spratly Islands, highlighted the report by the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which was funded by the US State Department.
The boats accompanied Chinese law enforcement at recent oil and gas stand-offs with Malaysia and Vietnam, and about 200 gathered at Whitsun Reef in March, sparking a diplomatic incident with the Philippines.
The report, by the CSIS’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), tracked the operations, home ports, funding and ownership of China’s maritime militia in the South China Sea, in what it called the most comprehensive profile of the militia to date.
The report defined this force as primarily made up of “vessels ostensibly engaged in the business of commercial fishing, but whose true occupation is in achieving Chinese political and military objectives”.
“What we discovered over the course of this research is that there’s clearly been an effort to professionalise and build up the militia over the last eight years, coinciding with (Chinese president) Xi Jinping’s elevation to power,” said AMTI director Greg Poling, who co-authored the report, at a webinar on Thursday (Nov 18) when it was released.
China has long denied it uses maritime militia to press its claims in the South China Sea, which overlap with those of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, arguing instead that they are commercial boats fishing in those waters.
But the AMTI report used a variety of sources to undermine that claim, from Chinese-language reports that explicitly referred to certain boats as maritime militia, to satellite photos and ship tracking data showing vessels loitering in disputed areas without fishing.
For instance, trawlers, which fish by towing nets through the water or along the seabed, were observed to be stationary. Falling-net vessels, which extend long arms carrying a large net that is then dropped around the target fish, did not deploy their arms.
“When vessels loiter for days or weeks without ever trawling or deploying gear, it is extremely compelling evidence they are not commercially fishing,” said the report.
It said that another telltale sign that Chinese fishing vessels were not actually fishing was their practice of tying themselves together in a tightly grouped line, called rafting up.
This increases their stability when anchored and enables them to more easily communicate among themselves during long periods of inactivity, said the report, which included a photograph of Chinese militia vessels tied together at Whitsun Reef in March.
China said then that they were fishing boats seeking shelter from rough weather.
“There is no commercial rationale for a large fleet of fishing vessels to operate in this manner. Remote sensing data shows that Chinese maritime militia vessels loiter in large clusters for weeks at a time. If they were full-time fishers, they would be losing money by the day,” said the report.
These vessels are also permitted to operate in the Spratly Islands during China’s annual fishing moratorium that lasts four months in the summer, said report co-author and China Ocean Institute founder Tabitha Mallory at the webinar.
The report found that the militia operates from 10 ports in China’s Guangdong and Hainan provinces. Roughly 300 militia vessels operate in the Spratly Islands each day, it concluded using remote sensing data.
They fall into two categories: professional militia vessels and commercial fishing boats that the government recruits into militia activity.
The report detailed how China’s government uses subsidy programmes to encourage fishing vessel operators to act as its “paid agents” in the disputed waters, in violation of international law.
“These programmes… conclusively demonstrate that the majority of Chinese fishing vessels in disputed areas of the South China Sea do not operate as independent commercial actors, but instead as paid agents of the Chinese government obligated to help fulfil its political and national security objectives,” said the report.
The programmes offer subsidies for fuel, construction and communications, navigation and safety equipment, making it lucrative for commercial operators to be part of the militia.
“They go out. They ride an anchor in the Spratly Islands for well over 200 days a year to get the subsidies,” said Mr Poling, adding that the boats also serve as intelligence collection assets for the Chinese navy.
“Just by being there, they normalise the idea of the Chinese presence and they deny access to fishing grounds for regional coastal states,” he added.
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