The fleet of “fishing boats” of the Chinese Communist Party’s maritime militia has been in the disputed waters of Whitsun Reef and the waters off the Philippines for nearly two months since early March this year. Two to three hundred large fishing boats, similar in shape and size, huddled neatly together, not fishing and not casting nets, just staying at sea, eyeing the sea, certainly not with good intentions. But why is the CCP doing this and what exactly are its intentions? The international community and observers of China issues are speculating. Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian was summoned by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, who told him that they were “extremely unhappy” with the presence of Chinese vessels in Philippine waters and that Beijing should immediately evacuate all vessels. Huang had no clear explanation and could not give a clear explanation. Chinese diplomats have claimed that the fishing boats moored around Ngau Yoke Reef were sheltering from the storm, but the fleet has not left since the weather improved.
China’s fishing fleet is the largest in the world, with an estimated 180,000-190,000 fishing boats. But because of the CCP’s opaque and even falsified data, the international community still does not know exactly how many of them are real, commercial fishing boats and how many can be counted as armed fishing boats or maritime militias. Under the CCP’s statehood system, all people are armed, which naturally includes maritime resources. In particular, when the CCP clearly knows that its naval power is far from enough to match that of the United States and Japan, they will certainly include these 180,000 fishing boats in their asymmetric strike force for the sake of using “over-the-limit warfare” and asymmetric force. According to Russian estimates, the gap between the naval power of the Chinese Communist Party and the United States is more than a few decades. Therefore, the Chinese Communist Party’s use of fishing fleets and maritime militias has its own internal logic, and the Chinese Communist Party has always had the habit of fighting “people’s wars”.
Carl Schuster, former director of operations for the U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said that the CCP’s “maritime militias” do not go fishing, they have automatic weapons on board, their hulls are reinforced, and their top speed is 18-22 knots, faster than 90 percent of the world’s fishing boats. Professor Andrew Erickson of the Center for Chinese Maritime Studies at the U.S. Naval War College pointed out that the Chinese Communist maritime militia’s boats are much larger and stronger than typical fishing boats in the Philippines or other countries, with additional friction strips welded to the steel plates behind the bow and high-pressure water guns mounted on the mast.
A report in Taiwan’s online magazine “Naruto” last August said that the Sansha Maritime Militia was created in 2013 and registered as the Sansha City Fisheries Development Corporation in 2015, recruiting a large number of retired officers and soldiers and college graduates and rapidly expanding. Sansha City’s full-time maritime militia vessels, with hulls of steel designed to withstand battle damage, have armory and ammunition stores inside the fishing boats for storing light weapons and ammunition, with bayonet jacks reserved for heavy machine guns/machine guns on the bow and sides, can transform into simple gunboats for a short time, and their displacement and hull configuration can even dispense heavy anti-tank missiles and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles!
What is the point of having three hundred boats that are not in production and just sitting around, with thousands of people eating and drinking for nothing every day and needing more than two months of supplies? To the Filipinos, this is a weasel worshipping a chicken with no good intentions. Moreover, with so many weasels gathered together, there must be an ulterior motive. So, what exactly is the intention of the Chinese Communist Party? The United States, Japan and other countries have also expressed their concerns about the CCP’s intentions and condemned Beijing, but it is not clear what the CCP’s intentions are.
If the CCP’s intention is to occupy an island like NiuYuYu Reef and take it from the Philippines to add a foothold to the CCP’s sphere of influence in the South China Sea, this goal should not be difficult to achieve. The problem, however, is that it is easy for the CCP to occupy, but it may be difficult to sustain the occupation. The Philippines is not going to leave this small island in its EEZ to be occupied by the CCP, thus affecting wider economic and fishing interests. Ngau Yoke Reef is close to Palawan and Brunei in the Philippines, and not far from Vietnam, but it is more than six or seven times the distance from China’s Hainan Island. The Chinese Communist Party should not be in a tug-of-war with the Philippines at this time, fighting over a small island and causing an international dispute.
The CCP’s strategy in the South China Sea, once implemented, should be to fully and completely occupy all the islands and reefs, and when it has the strength, take all the disputed islands and reefs in one go, and hold them with overwhelming superiority, forcing Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and other countries that have claims to the islands in the South China Sea to give up their claims. Until such a full occupation can be achieved, and until it has such a capability, it is believed that the CCP will not act rashly because they will be wary of going to war with the US in the South China Sea. The Chinese Communist Party will not have that capability for at least 10-15 years. Although the U.S. military is almost eager and eager to fight the CCP navy as soon as possible, to remove this potential threat to the U.S. in the Western Pacific in one fell swoop, before the CCP navy has formed a climate. The CCP military certainly knows this, and knows that in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, the U.S. will try to lengthen the battle line and extend it into the South China Sea, while the CCP will try to bring the battle line as close as possible, not going beyond the Taiwan Strait.
If not for occupation, would the CCP be intimidating Vietnam and the Philippines and Malaysia with harassment and threats against Bull Yoke Reef? Such intimidation would not be strong enough to put pressure on the Philippines, and would be even less important for Vietnam. The CCP will show weakness to more powerful forces (such as the United States) and confuse the enemy with maritime militias; but the CCP will certainly not show weakness to relatively weak forces (such as Vietnam and the Philippines), but will muster up its greatest strength, even if it is to pull out the big one from the runt, in order to compete with the weak maritime powers like Vietnam and the Philippines.
There is also the possibility that the CCP, through its presence on NiuYe Reef, is sending a test signal to the U.S. to see how the U.S. will respond under the CCP’s manned sea tactics (boat and sea tactics). The Philippines and the U.S. military recently began a two-week joint military exercise called Balikatan, but the joint exercise has been underway for a decade. Haven’t U.S. Navy carrier strike groups, destroyers and submarines recently stepped up patrols of the South China Sea? U.S. Navy destroyers have even openly teased the Chinese Communist Party’s Liaoning aircraft carrier, sneering and making the Chinese Communist Party uncomfortable. If the Chinese Communist Party were to harass the U.S. Navy with civilian forces, with maritime militias manning small and medium-sized weapons and equipment, by mistake, or by burying the U.S. with dirty tactics like spreading fishing nets and tangling propellers, how would the professional U.S. Navy respond? However, the U.S. Navy, having suffered from the 2001 China-U.S. plane collision (Hainan Island incident), has a plan to deal with the Chinese Communist Party’s tactic of using the civilian population as the front line.
If it is unlikely that the CCP is targeting the Philippines or testing the US, why would the CCP gather 200 to 300 fishing boats off the Philippines? To provide food and drink to the fishermen for their vacation? Of course not. The only possible explanation for the CCP’s real motive is that the CCP is testing for an invasion of Taiwan, rehearsing for an attack on the outer islands of Taiwan, and preparing for the outbreak of conflict in the Taiwan Strait!
Ngau Yoke Reef vis-à-vis the Philippine home islands is quite similar to the status of the Taiwan-occupied (South China Sea) Taiping Island vis-à-vis Taiwan’s home islands; or rather, very similar to the status of Jinma, Penghu, etc. vis-à-vis Taiwan’s home islands. Since the Biden administration took office, the CCP has been testing and gauging the strength of the new U.S. administration’s support for Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself, because of historical baggage, considerations of governing legitimacy, and the urgent need of its leaders to build and maintain power, coupled with the growing willingness of the island to alienate itself from the mainland, has made the CCP increasingly desperate to feel the consequences of losing Taiwan. If the CCP needs a series of preparations before rashly committing an attack on Taiwan, and needs to test the dispatching, commanding, feeding, and munitions of the maritime militia flotilla, NiuYue Reef, an island not far from other CCP spheres of influence such as Meiji Reef, would be a suitable drill ground.
The Chinese Communist Party’s intention is likely to be: If 300 fishing boats are arranged to gather just outside Taiping Island, what will be Taiwan’s reaction? What would be the reaction of the United States? Or, what would Taiwan’s reaction be if 300 fishing boats were arranged closer to Jinma, off Penghu, or simply anchored in the middle of the Taiwan Strait facing Taiwan’s main island for many days? Even if the Chinese Communist Party’s fishing fleet does not do anything, just gather together, it can create a tense atmosphere in Taiwan, confuse people’s minds, let the various pro-communist forces on the island to take advantage of the opportunity to attack, it can play the effect of pressure on Taiwan, not to fight and give up the army!
The U.S. is not going to arrange a huge carrier battle group to squeeze into the crowded Taiwan Strait, shuttling and cruising between 300 fishing boats or even 3,000 fishing boats, right? And the emergence of such a situation could be the very purpose of the Chinese Communist Party’s counter-intervention strategy!
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