In March 2021, it was reported that China’s elusive “maritime militia” may be gathering at the Whitsun Reef in the Spratly Islands of the South China Sea. Subsequently, the Philippine Defense Secretary demanded their departure from Manila’s EEZ, and the Foreign Secretary further launched a diplomatic protest against the same. China remained defiant and denied the existence of a “maritime militia” by stating that these were just “fishing boats” taking shelter at the Whitsun Reef due to adverse weather conditions.
However, in May 2021, it was reported that the ships of the state-owned fishing company in charge of Sansha City’s maritime fleet are engaged in more than just fishing and that the shipping company had earlier been involved in projects with the Chinese PLA and also had access to classified national security information.
A closer study of these two incidents reveals that China has built the maritime militia as a part of its national maritime strategy to press sovereignty claims in the South China Sea using “grey zone operations”. Moreover, the use of maritime militia by China, it seems, borrows from the idea of Beijing militarising its man-made islands in the South China Sea under the garb of conducting economic activities, further exposing its “duality of purpose”.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE CHINESE MARITIME MILITIA
China has always denied the existence of a maritime militia, but Andrew Erickson exposed the existence of maritime militia ships at the Whitsun Reef in a recent publication, which brought the attention of analysts to the issue once again. The US Department of Defense (DoD) identifies it with the name People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM).
However, what is curious is the fact that the PAFMM has existed for decades – it was first used in 1974 in the Battle of the Paracel Islands between China and South Vietnam. Building upon lessons from then, China has indulged in its upgradation in recent years.
In 2012, the Chinese government decided to inject heavy investments in its shipping industry based on a proposal made by 27 scholars at the Chinese Academy of Engineering to replace the small, old, wooden boats with larger, steel-hulled craft. Concomitantly, Xi Jinping also urged the South China Sea fishers to build boats in a speech in 2013.
As a result, the government started offering subsidies to fishermen and shipping companies to build such boats. In fact, in 2018, a Party Secretary of a shipping company in China also revealed that to attain these subsidies, the ships had to adhere to certain specific stipulations – large size and powerful engines amongst others.
Ryan D. Martinson, while talking about the maritime militia gathering at the Whitsun Reef, argues that the Chinese fishers “could not afford these expensive crafts without some help”. As stated above, the fishing companies involved with PAFMM have links to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG), which trains it and works in tandem with it. But it begs the question — what are China’s objectives?
Derek Grossman opines that the PAFMM plays a role in enforcing China’s sovereignty claims in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. By maintaining a presence in the maritime zones, the PAFMM aims at overwhelming the enemy with a swarm of fishing vessels. The smaller nations, while taking the bait, react by sending naval reinforcements. This gives China the perfect pretext to escalate the issue and seize new territory. Thus, the PAFMM has a dual purpose — fishing and the acquisition of territories. Maintaining presence also helps the PAFMM ships in gathering intelligence.
Concurrently, a report by MP Consulting Group also sheds light on Guangdong’s Marine and Fisheries Board’s goal of helping “protect China’s rights in disputed maritime space in the South China Sea” and to promote “the construction of maritime militia forces”. Thus, a clear objective of the PAFMM is to bully the smaller nations in disputed maritime zones of the South China Sea and the East China Sea to press its maritime claims.
The evidence of the use of maritime militia by China is ample — the Battle of Paracel Islands with Vietnam in 1974; in Senkaku Islands against Japan in 1978; the dispute over the Scarborough Shoal against the Philippines in 2012; ramming Vietnamese fishing and coast guard vessels in 2014; and harassing Filipino fishermen at Sandy Cay and Pagasa Island in 2017.
DUALITY OF PURPOSE: DRAWING LESSONS FROM THE PAST
In employing and upgrading the PAFMM, China has found an alternative to the expensive plan of militarising the islands it has built in the South China Sea. While both the plans may very well be complementary to each other in achieving the Chinese goals, the past provides us with some valuable insights into the similarities in both tactics.
The militarisation of the South China Sea by building man-made islands has posed two major problems to China — the fear of escalation and the subsequent intervention by the United States. To establish regional hegemony and eventually a China-led World Order, Beijing is trying to devise ways to reduce Washington’s role in the South and East China Seas. China understood the need for strong maritime strategy decades back and since then, has invested heavily in developing the same.
The use of PAFMM allows China to achieve the dual goals of pressing its sovereignty claims and avoiding a military escalation that may involve the US. The use of “fishing boats” does not qualify as an act of military aggression and is thus a grey zone. Therefore, China is effectively employing “grey zone operations” in the region to fulfil its goal of the acquisition of the South China Sea. It is a cheaper model of doing so and aids the coercive actions of the Chinese PLAN and Chinese Coast Guard (CCG).
Militarisation of the man-made islands has been going on for years now and maritime militia offers yet another way of maritime power projection by China. It unmasks China’s “duality of purpose” in various other domains as well — fears of economic ports being turned into military ones; carrying out the “Uyghur Genocide” in detention camps classified as “re-education camps”; and carrying out debt-trap diplomacy via the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI).
Needless to say, studying the militarisation of the South China Sea from a perspective of duality may serve as an effective way of threat perception by the regional players. A larger focus on identifying and reporting the activities of the Chinese maritime militia will help stakeholders to pre-empt its tactics in the South and the East China Sea. As Xi Jinping’s policy of expansionism continues unabated, taming the dragon at the seas will require larger coordination amongst concerned countries and inflicting costs on China. The onus of taking an initiative in this direction has to be on the US. The exploitation of “grey zones” by China might just have very black and white repercussions for regional stability and security.
The writer is a Project Manager, Red Lantern Analytica.