A Chinese fishing boat near Ngau Yoke Reef in Philippine waters, March 23, 2021, as a large Chinese fleet accumulates on Ngau Yoke Reef.
A mysterious and reluctantly acknowledged “maritime militia” of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has recently become a hot topic due to the massive buildup of the Chinese fleet in the Philippine waters at NiuYeYe Reef.
The “maritime militia” is seen as the CCP’s third maritime force, after the navy and the marine police. Interestingly, while the outside world is talking about the “maritime militia,” on April 2, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying insisted that these are only Chinese fishing boats sheltering from the wind, and the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines denied that they are “maritime militia. Zhao Lijian, another spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, also said that the “maritime militia” argument “has ulterior motives and sinister intentions”, and the Global Times published an article with the headline “Why they fabricated “Chinese maritime militia boats “.
In fact, not only does the U.S. military know all about the CCP’s “maritime militia” operations, but the CCP itself is bragging about how it uses the “maritime militia” to “fight against the sea” through “low-intensity confrontation. Low-intensity confrontation,” making a “huge contribution” to maritime “rights maintenance,” and so on.
Experts say that the most important way for the CCP to operate in gray areas and pursue maritime objectives without triggering armed conflict is to use maritime militias. It is estimated that the CCP’s full-time maritime militia may number in the tens of thousands, with thousands of vessels.
Full-Time Maritime Militias That Do Not Fish
The Center for China Maritime Studies (CMSI) at the U.S. Naval War College has been studying the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Armed Maritime Militia (PAFMM), and according to a report in the diplomat last July, CMSI’s research indicates that the PAFMM is not an independent force. The militia is not an independent service, but rather a defense organization established by local and provincial governments that is locally managed but requires military approval to operate.
The “maritime militia” can be divided into two categories: a large number of ordinary fishing fleets that only occasionally work for the Communist Navy. The other are full-time maritime militias, more specialized, better equipped and able to carry out direct missions, and they are the maritime vanguard of the Navy’s auxiliary fleet, with goals other than fishing.
The U.S. Department of Defense’s report on the Chinese (Communist) military in 2020 mentions only 84 actual professional “maritime militia” vessels, all under the jurisdiction of Sansha City in the Xisha Islands. Established in 2016 and heavily subsidized by the government, the force operates in the Spratly Islands and is the most professional of the CCP’s “maritime militia” forces, with no commercial fishing responsibilities, and recruits crew members from recently separated veterans.
Carl Schuster, former director of operations for the U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said in a recent interview with CNN, “These (professional) “maritime militias” don’t go fishing, they have automatic weapons on board, and their hulls are reinforced, so it’s very dangerous to approach at close range. They have automatic weapons on board and their hulls are reinforced, so it is very dangerous to approach them at close range. In addition, the maximum speed of these vessels is about 18-22 knots, which is faster than 90 percent of the world’s fishing boats.”
More than two hundred Chinese vessels are assembled near Niuyu Reef in the South China Sea.
Writing in foreign policy in March, Andrew Erickson, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College’s Center for Maritime Studies in China, noted, “Their [the maritime militia’s] boats, which are much larger and more robust than the typical Philippine or other country’s fishing boats, have relatively strong hull designs. The steel plates behind the bow, with extra rubbing strips welded on, and high-pressure water guns mounted on the mast, make for powerful weapons in most contingencies, able to shoulder, ram and spray aggressively against opponents like the average fishing boat or police officer.”
In a more detailed report on Sansha City’s full-time marine militia in August last year, the Taiwanese online magazine Naruto said that the Sansha Marine Militia Unit was created in 2013 and registered as the Sansha City Fisheries Development Corporation in 2015, recruiting a large number of retired officers and soldiers with professional skills and college talents to rapidly expand its fleet.
Since 2015, the Sansha Fisheries Development Company has built at least 20 new large fishing boats,” the article said. These new vessels are characterized by a large displacement suitable for ocean voyages, in addition to a steel-built design that can withstand war damage.
“In addition, the vessels already have an ordnance room and ammunition storage for light weapons and ammunition, and even gun mount jacks for heavy machine guns/machine guns on the bow and side of the vessel.
“And in terms of displacement and hull configuration, it is by no means difficult to dispense heavy anti-fighter missiles and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. So, Sansha City Fisheries Development Corporation has become a state-run military company in essence, and the fishing fleet, which belongs to it, is also shaped like an unlicensed paramilitary organization.”
Full-time maritime militia may tens of thousands of personnel and thousands of vessels
According to Erickson’s analysis, the more than two hundred and twenty vessels that have accumulated on NiuYu Reef in recent weeks look different from the full-time militia vessels in Sansha City, suggesting that the number of full-time CCP militia vessels, which is larger than previously thought, may be in the thousands of vessels and tens of thousands of personnel. The U.S. military’s estimate of 84 vessels is overly conservative.
In another article published in Foreign Policy at the end of March, Erickson traced the large number of “fishing boats” clustered on Niuyu Reef to seven huge trawlers belonging to the Taishan Fancheng Fisheries Development Company in Jiangmen, Guangdong, which are professional full-time “maritime militia ” boats.
These boats (a total of 9 were built) were constructed by Guangxin Shipbuilding Heavy Industry, and at the delivery ceremony on December 5, 2017, Wan Liang’an, deputy commander of Jiangmen Military Sub-district, and Zhang Yuanfa, director of Jiangmen Military Sub-district’s Warfare and Construction Division, both attended the ceremony. This shows that the 9 trawlers of Fancheng Fishery are not ordinary fishing boats, but new members of the Taishan “Maritime Militia”, under the command of the Chinese Communist Army.
In March 2016, the same year that Sailfish was established, the plan to set up an offshore militia squadron was discussed at the Taishan “Armed Police Work Conference. The plan. In the terminology of “maritime militia”, “distant sea” often refers to remote waters within the first island chain, including the southern tip of the South China Sea.
In April 2019, Li Guangyi, director of Jiangmen’s Ministry of Veterans’ Affairs, visited the Shadiwan Offshore Militia Squadron. He boarded one of the “militia backbone ships” and “encouraged the captain and crew to be pioneers in the South China Sea ‘rights maintenance’ and complete the tasks assigned by their superiors,” emphasizing the squadron’s role in providing priority employment for CCP responsibility in providing priority employment for veterans. All of this is a strong indication that the Far Sea Militia Squadron, manned by former CCP soldiers
Based on observations and analysis of AIS data (Automatic Identification System for Vessels) over the past 12 months, Erickson found that the behavior patterns of the nine trawlers of Sail Course Fisheries were different from any ordinary fishing vessel.
Since March 2020, the nine trawlers have been systematically patrolling from Taishan to the Jiuzhang Group of reefs in the South China Sea (Niuyu Reef is in the northeastern part of Jiuzhang Group of reefs), and then returning directly to their home in Guangdong. None of these actions make any sense for the fishing boats, which have a strong economic incentive to fish regularly, Erickson analyzed. This pattern of behavior is similar to the 84 professional militia boats in Sansha City.
Erickson said Beijing has been using maritime militias to advance its disputed claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea since the 1974 naval battle in the Xisha Islands. It has been adding to its elite force of professional, militarized, full-time maritime militias, recruited from former Communist Party veterans, paid handsome salaries and benefits, and constantly pursuing Communist Party territorial sea claims.
The aforementioned article in The Diplomat analyzes the decade-long expansion of China’s fishing fleet, which was directly related to the rise of the “maritime militia,” after China had been reducing its fishing capacity until 2008. The CCP has subsidized the fleet with new steel-hulled boats, free navigation satellite systems, and paramilitary training. The fishing fleet conducts military exercises with the Chinese navy and marine police, while receiving local compensation including subsidies, social benefits and pensions.
Erickson said the militias are integrated with the Chinese fishing fleet, and the militias can lead large numbers of fishing boats on missions. China’s fishing fleet is the largest in the world, with about 187,000 fishing boats, and until now the West has not known exactly how many of them are associated with the maritime militias.
More than two hundred Chinese vessels are assembled in the South China Sea near the Bull Yoke Reef.
Wandering the Gray Zone to Coerce South China Sea Nations
Earlier this year, the army university press published a lengthy report, “China’s Maritime Militia and Fishing Fleets,” which provides background on the rise of the Chinese Communist Party’s maritime militia. The article analyzes the background to the rise of the CCP’s maritime militia.
The article argues that since 1992, CCP diplomacy has gone through three phases: the “hiding of light” phase under Deng Xiaoping, the “peaceful rise” phase in the 1990s to reassure other countries, and the “China Dream” phase under Xi Jinping. The “China Dream” stage under Xi Jinping.
After coming to power in 2012, Xi Jinping decided that “hiding the light” and “peaceful rise” were no longer appropriate, and that he preferred an activist approach, and that the CCP was trying to maintain its “legitimacy” by denigrating Western liberalism. In order to maintain its “legitimacy,” the CCP has denigrated Western freedoms and promoted “a century of humiliation” while “resisting more resolutely challenges to its core interests.
As the CCP’s third force on the sea, the “maritime militia” roams the gray zone, overwhelming its opponents with swarms of fishing boats and gradually gaining de facto control and dominance of the entire South China Sea. This would allow the CCP to make a large number of territorial claims without the use of military force.
On the contrary, when they encounter the U.S. Navy or other powerful foreign forces, they will use “weakness” as a weapon to show their so-called civilian status and make foreign warships hesitate. The Chinese Communist Party will also use the opportunity to step up domestic propaganda.
A 2017 Sohu.com article with the public name “Hot-Blooded Weapons” reads, “China’s (CCP) most secretive maritime militia force has been playing a huge role on the front line,” exposing how the maritime militia functions in a gray area.
The article says, “As a maritime militia, they do not have strong firepower equipment, so why can they play such an important role? That is because there are disturbances by unidentified ships that the military is not well placed to take direct action against, and the maritime militia, as irregular forces, are a better option to use to defend against when incidents do not rise to a state of war, and in the event of a change of heart, the Chinese (Communist) Navy is the maritime militia’s most solid backstop, an approach to defending against the enemy known as low-intensity confrontation in maritime disputes.”
For example, in 2009, when the U.S. Navy survey ship Impeccable, conducting a military survey in waters beyond China’s territorial waters, was surrounded by maritime militias.
In 2012, the maritime militia became the vanguard of the occupation of Huangyan Island, coordinated by the Chinese Communist Party’s Maritime Police.
In May 2014, a Chinese oil rig was towed to what has long been considered Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), triggering a standoff between more than 100 Chinese and Vietnamese vessels. For more than two months, Chinese “maritime militia” vessels formed a protective circle around the oil rig, chasing away Vietnamese vessels and sinking three Vietnamese ships.
In May 2015, the Jiangmen Military Sub-district of Guangdong Province organized a military exercise for the maritime militia, focusing on its wartime tasks, including mobilization, maritime rights defense, patrolling, logistical support, and repair of docks damaged during the battle.
In March 2016, about 100 Chinese fishing boats, appeared in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone. The vessels did not fly any national flag and were not visibly marked, and were accompanied by two Communist Chinese Maritime Police vessels.
In 2019, “maritime militia” vessels approached within half a nautical mile of a Philippine outpost on the Spratly Islands’ Nanyao Sandbar. The Philippines deployed a former U.S. Navy tank landing ship to monitor the two Chinese trawlers.
The same story is repeated in the East China Sea. Since the Japanese government purchased three of the Senkaku Islands from Japanese civilians in 2010 to prevent their occupation, “maritime militias” and Chinese Communist Party maritime police vessels have regularly entered the territorial waters of the Senkaku Islands to harass Japan and disrupt the status quo. 2020 has seen an escalation of these actions by the Chinese Communist Party to pressure Tokyo.
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