Category Archives: Asia-Pacific

Analysis relating to USPACOM.

Asia-Pacific, Territorial and Law of the Sea Disputes

Further Militarizing the South China Sea May Undermine Freedom of Navigation

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The following  is an excerpt from an article that originally appeared on The Diplomat, was republished with the authors’ permission. Read it in its original form here. 

By Eric Gomez and Doug Bandow

In the near future the U.S. Navy (USN) reportedly will sail within 12 nautical miles of islands claimed by China in the South China Sea (SCS). This is welcome news for those who believe that Washington’s weakness in the face of China’s “blatantly illegal” island reclamation campaign has encouraged Beijing’s bad behavior. Now the question is: what comes next?

The idea that FONOPS will rein in Chinese actions in the SCS is appealing. Administration critics charge that China has been making all the right moves to bolster its territorial claims while the United States sits on its hands. However, FONOPS will not resolve SCS territorial disputes. In fact, this approach likely will complicate U.S.-Chinese relations and make a peaceful settlement of territorial disputes more difficult. 

Read the Rest Here

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Asia-Pacific, Current Operations

Why the US Navy’s first South China Sea FONOP wasn’t a FONOP

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By Timothy Choi

The eagerly-anticipated Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) by the United States Navy (USN) in the South China Sea was initially viewed as a strong demonstration of the United States’ resolve that the waters surrounding China’s artificial islands and claimed reefs are high seas. China’s attempt to establish a de facto 12 nautical mile territorial sea around these features is, as most readers of CIMSEC will know, in direct contravention of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). UNCLOS clearly specifies that man-made islands and underwater features like reefs are not eligible for the 12NM zone granted to more robust geographic features, such as rocks or naturally-formed islands capable of sustaining human habitation or economic life; the latter of these are also eligible for the prized 200 NM Exclusive Economic Zone.

Acknowledging implicitly that their features are not legally entitled to any kind of territorial sea, the Chinese instead have attempted to establish a normative regime aiming to make other actors treat the waters surrounding their features as though it were a territorial sea. Under customary international law, consistent behavior towards a particular issue can result in the practice becoming legally binding, either through generally agreed norms of behavior or a gradual solidification it into written law. Thus, for countries wishing to prevent the high seas around the Chinese features from becoming a territorial reality, it is crucial for interested parties to halt the norm-creation process before it can gather steam.

To do this, the USN thus carried out its first FONOP, sending the Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Lassen within 12 NM of the Chinese build-up on Subi Reef. However, simply sailing within 12 NM is not sufficient to demonstrate American resolve that the waters are high seas.

Rather, the Lassen had to have behaved within those 12 NM in the same manner allowed on high seas. Under UNCLOS, a warship on the high seas may carry out its whole array of activities including launching helicopters, turning on fire-control radars, and carrying out arms exercises. However, these and other activities (including fishing and research) are all prohibited when sailing in another country’s 12 NM territorial waters – a condition known as “innocent passage”, detailed under UNCLOS Part II, Article 19.

USS Lassen's crew carries out a medical training exercise with an airborne MH-60R Seahawk helicopter in the South China Sea some time before the FONOP. (credit: Navy.mil) -Had this been done within 12 NM of Subi Reef, America's commitment to Freedom of Navigation would be unambiguous.
USS Lassen’s crew carries out a medical training exercise with an airborne MH-60R Seahawk helicopter in the South China Sea some time before the FONOP. (credit: Navy.mil)
-Had this been done within 12 NM of Subi Reef, America’s commitment to Freedom of Navigation would be unambiguous.

Thus, in order for the USN to send the unequivocal message that it saw the 12 NM around Subi Reef as high seas, it had to have carried out at least one of those activities. Else, its transit would have been identical in form to that of an innocent passage, which is only required for territorial waters. Carrying out such a transit would therefore legitimize, or at least be viewed as legitimizing, the Chinese claim that Subi Reef has a 12 NM territorial sea. In so doing, Lassen’s voyage, far from contesting the Chinese position, would actually reinforce it by behaving in the same way it would have to in an actual territorial sea.

So how did Lassen actually behave during its transit? It appears more and more likely that Lassen in fact behaved exactly as she would in territorial waters. Sam LaGrone’s post on USNI News quotes US defence officials and sources as stating that Lassen carried out an innocent passage, though claiming it did not mean a recognition of the Chinese position. Lassen’s transit, then, was not any more a FONOP than any regular transit through another state’s territorial waters under the articles of UNCLOS. 

If the United States wants to demonstrate its resolve on the issue, its FONOPs need to not only sail within 12 NM of a Chinese feature, but also involve activities prohibited under “innocent passage” conditions while in the area. Such activities can be as mundane as lowering a fishing lure over the side, or as visually impressive as launching a Seahawk or UAV.

As the US plans for further, more regular FONOPs in the South China Sea, America’s willingness to challenge China on the issue will manifest not in dramatic debates at the United Nations or stern press releases, but in the minute activities of the ships and sailors involved. Photographs and videos of such activities would go far to prove the United States’ unwillingness to compromise on Freedom of Navigation and gain the confidence of its regional allies. A strong and unambiguous message now can nip a problem in the bud before it can fester to point where actual violence may break out. To paraphrase Sun-Tzu, it is much better to defeat an enemy’s strategy than to defeat them in battle. Heading off the Chinese at their own norm-creation game now will decrease the opportunities for misunderstandings leading to violence in the future – but only if the message cannot be misinterpreted.

Timothy Choi is a PhD student at the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military & Strategic Studies. Interested in all areas of maritime security and naval affairs, he struggles everyday with the fact that he studies at an institution located hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest ocean. When not on Twitter (@TimmyC62), he can be found building tiny ship models and headbanging to some kind of northern European folk metal. 

Asia-Pacific, Current Operations, Middle East

Should the U.S. Navy Help with the Med. Refugee Crisis?

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A Modest Proposal to Help this Generation’s “Boat People”  

By John T. Kuehn

First, this article may be too late.  What do I mean?  I mean that we—as in the global community and the United States in particular—may be too far behind the power curve to do something meaningful about helping the refugees fleeing across the sea from the Syrian Civil War-Islamic Thirty Year’s War raging in the Middle East.  This is my way of saying I wish I had written this about six months ago when the problem was manifest to all.  So why write at all?  Something might be STILL done with forward deployed naval forces of the United States today, perhaps with like-minded maritime allies to help the unfortunate masses of humanity fleeing their homelands from a particularly cruel conflict.    Even if it is too late for current policy, the trend of “boat people” fleeing war to a better life elsewhere has many precedents in history, especially the last one hundred years and it will most certainly occur again.   This means that ringing the clarion now might contribute to effective humanitarian policy action in the future.  So it is worth a try.

First, let us briefly review some relevant history on these sorts of refugee crises as they pertain to migration in unseaworthy craft in search of a better life on distant shores. Case one takes us back to 1975 and the late 1970s when the United States’ lost war in Vietnam resulted in the flight of the boat people of South Vietnam  (and Cambodia, too) from the proletarian utopias established by the new Vietnamese government in Hanoi and the Khmer Rouge. The United States was caught napping somewhat on this one, too, but before long had started making efforts with naval assets based in the Western Pacific to help with this crisis. However,   years later a particularly unfortunate incident occurred in the 1980s wherein the captain of a U.S. warship (the USS Dubuque) failed to render proper assistance to fleeing “boat people” who later survived to present evidence against him. We will return to this issue since it is a feature of the law of the sea that mariners must render aid to people in danger on the high seas.  More recently Americans saw the flight of people from both Cuba and Haiti to the United States in the 1990s, fleeing various natural and man-made disasters in the Caribbean.

Why should the United States use its assets, especially its Navy, to help these people? There are three principle reasons: moral obligation, humanitarian, and practical.    The practical value for the United States involves two factors, leadership and what, for lack of a better term, might be called “good press.” If the U.S. is to be a leader it must take the lead in areas where it claims an interest.  By getting more involved and working with other states of the region while at the same time committing actual naval forces to help, we build partnerships, lead, and help. It is a win-win-win result.

From a moral standpoint we owe it to these people.  Here is the causal logic—when the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq all those years ago we removed the government in power and destabilized the region.  From that context Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) developed.  During the final years in Iraq we estimated we had pretty much solved the problem of AQI, but instead it had simply transformed itself into the current Islamic State (ISIS).   At the same time Syria fell into civil war, a conflict not unrelated to our actions in Iraq and has been further de-stabilized, especially since 2013, by an increasingly powerful and dangerous ISIS.  The upshot is that some, not all, of these refugees can be traced to American policy choices, so there exists something of a moral obligation to help with the result of our, for lack of a better word, blundering in the Middle East.

Finally, we get back to the purely humanitarian reasons—the salvation of (mostly) innocent human life.   Obviously things are being done, but there is little reason to allow people to helplessly drown or die of exposure at sea on un-seaworthy craft.   They already think they can make it and so the arguments that they would not flee if they did not think someone would help are not only ill-informed, they are morally wrongheaded.   In fact, the United States by simply having ships in the Eastern Mediterranean is obligated to “render assistance” should it run across people in distress on the high seas. Simply stationing ships on patrol in that area will naturally result in a requirement to render assistance because we certainly do not want any more Dubuques like we had in the South China Sea after the Vietnam War had ended.

As with any use of American taxpayer-funded projects, use of U.S. Navy assets must be judicious.  Also, we must coordinate with partners and allies in the region, but rendering assistance on the high seas is part of international law and a moral imperative, more than one might think given our distance from the Eastern Mediterranean. However, if the United States is to use its Navy as the “sysadmin” of the global maritime regime, as Captain Peter Haynes discusses in his recent book on the “new maritime strategy,” then this sort of action and use of naval power is part of the responsibility that the mantle of maritime leadership confers.   Or perhaps we no longer aspire to lead in this domain?  I think not.

Dr. John T. Kuehn is the General William Stofft Chair for Historical Research at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College CGSC).  He retired from the U.S. Navy 2004 at the rank of commander after 23 years of service as a naval flight officer flying both land-based and carrier-based aircraft.  He has taught a variety of subjects, including military history, at CGSC since 2000.  He authored Agents of Innovation (2008), A Military History of Japan:  From the Age of the Samurai to the 21st Century (2014), and co-authored Eyewitness Pacific Theater (2008) with D.M. Giangreco as well as numerous articles and editorials and was awarded a Moncado Prize from the Society for Military History in 2011.  His latest book, due out from Praeger just in time for the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo is Napoleonic Warfare: The Operational Art of the Great Campaigns.

The views are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Asia-Pacific, Global Analysis

Irregular Forces at Sea: Not “Merely Fishermen”—Shedding Light on China’s Maritime Militia

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By Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy

Maritime militia, dead ahead! In a just-published Defense News article, Chris Cavas has made an important contribution to our understanding of the operations and applications of China’s irregular maritime forces. The forces he describes are almost certainly neither ordinary merchant ship operators nor random fishermen, but rather militiamen operating in pre-planned roles in conjunction with USS Lassen’s Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) in the South China Sea (SCS) on 27 October 2015.

Cavas cites a U.S. Navy source: “‘There were Chinese merchant vessels present that were not as demure as the Chinese Navy. One came out of its anchorage in the island and crossed the destroyer’s bow but at a safe distance, and the Lassen did not alter course as the merchant ship circled around.’ Fishing vessels in the area added to shipping traffic in the immediate area, the source said, but the ship did not have to maneuver around them. But the extra craft seem to have been present, the source noted, ‘because they anticipated the Lassen’s transit.’”

In what follows, the authors trace maritime militia involvement—in close coordination with other Chinese maritime forces—to a variety of important incidents at sea. It is thus not surprising to see these forces active near such China-occupied Spratly features as Subi Reef. But greater awareness is needed to address this vital but too-long-understudied issue. To that end, we offer the following major points:

  • China’s maritime militia is understudied, but it is important for understanding Beijing’s maritime strategy, especially in the SCS.
  • The militia work with other instruments of Chinese sea power—the military and the coast guard—to defend and advance China’s position in its disputes. They may also support military operations in wartime.
  • They allow China to vigorously pursue objectives without risking military conflict or creating an image of gunboat diplomacy.
  • This article series will profile four of the most important militia units operating in the SCS.

While Russia has employed “Little Green Men” surreptitiously in Crimea, China uses its own “Little Blue Men” to support its outstanding island and maritime claims in the East and South China seas. These maritime militia forces have participated in some of Beijing’s most important military and paramilitary operations in the SCS. They will be directly involved in future Chinese efforts, possibly including the direct harassment of U.S. and allied FONOPS. By “sending civilian, rather than military, ships to track or confront U.S. Navy vessels,” explains Huang Jing of the National University of Singapore, “China can issue a firm response to the U.S. while signaling that they don’t want to escalate the situation militarily.”

No ordinary civilian fishing boats, these! They are operated by members of China’s maritime militia (海上民兵). These irregular forces are recruited from a local fishing community or other maritime industry and remain employed there while being trained and available for government tasking. China’s modern maritime militia building dates to the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, when a rudimentary People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) faced Nationalist blockading of mainland ports and depredations against merchant vessels. As a stopgap measure, the nascent PRC trained and equipped its fishermen militias, both for their self-defense and to support ground and naval operations. Within today’s maritime militia, a small but growing set of elite units are the ones most likely to be deployed on more sophisticated operations that involve monitoring, displaying presence in front of, or opposing foreign actors. They frequently operate in concert with China’s navy and coast guard.

The PLA’s official newspaper states, “putting on camouflage they qualify as soldiers, taking off the camouflage they become law abiding fishermen.” Make no mistake: when national needs dictate, maritime militia are used as frontmen trolling in support of territorial claims. You can read our analysis to date here, here, here, and here. Now, with the potential role and impact of China’s maritime militia growing, it’s time to document their precise nature before Beijing is able to mischaracterize or selectively portray an interaction or incident as simply involving random civilian fishermen or other marine workers motivated by spontaneous patriotism unfairly oppressed by foreign forces.

The concept of deputizing civilians to perform state functions is not novel to China. The United States, for instance, has Naval Militia, as well as Coast Guard Auxiliary and a Craft of Opportunity Program—but they serve vastly different purposes. Many states’ naval militias, such as the Rhode Island Naval Militia, are not currently active. Only the New York Naval Militia has remained continuously active since its founding. The few that have remained active post-World War II or recently (re)activated assist with law enforcement, evacuations, disaster recovery, anti-terrorism, and defense of undisputed American territory and port facilities against mines and other hazards. Importantly, U.S. Naval Militias, like the U.S. Coast Guard, do not harass foreign vessels or conduct other assertive activities to further contested island or maritime claims. In fact, the United States has very few contested claims, and has a track record of adhering to international law to manage or resolve them. It does not resort to harassment or threats of force against foreign vessels regarding disputes; hence there is no need for its Naval Militias to do so.

By contrast, such “maritime rights protection” activities are important responsibilities for China’s leading irregular maritime forces. Selected elite Maritime Militia units prepare for the most advanced missions, in part by receiving training from the PLA Navy (PLAN). As the first article in our series will explain, Vietnam, one of the few other countries with a Maritime Militia similar to China’s in purpose, knows about their efforts only too well. Chinese maritime militia capabilities are poised to grow still further as Beijing’s desire for calibrated SCS operations grows and demobilized military forces may be offered as a result of Xi Jinping’s 300,000-troop downsizing to make the PLA, literally, leaner and meaner.

To challenge future U.S. and allied FONOPS, in addition to verbal challenges and conspicuous monitoring and tracking, Beijing will attempt to further portray itself as the victim of foreign predations, forced to respond “defensively.” In addition to close, ambiguous approaches by China coast guard vessels or aircraft, which—unlike naval warships—are not subject to the bilaterally-accepted Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) or the associated air annex, it may entail closer, even more ambiguous approaches by maritime militia forces. The vast majority would likely operate trawlers, but some may employ other marine economic assets as well, such as the “merchant vessel” that cut in front of USS Lassen. Beijing may attempt to mischaracterize or selectively portray an interaction or incident as simply involving random civilian fishermen or other marine workers and “island residents” unfairly oppressed by foreign forces motivated by spontaneous patriotism—when in fact these are irregular selectively-uniform-wearing forces controlled by the PLA through land-based military People’s Armed Forces Departments (PAFDs). It will also require proactivity and getting out ahead of Beijing’s narrative. Among other things, the U.S. government should document to the world the nature of China’s maritime milita and its government-controlled deception and harassment activities. That will be far easier and more effective before Beijing orchestrates any militia-related confrontation.

To better understand these important dynamics and their strategic, operational, tactical, and policy implications, the authors will therefore offer a series of five articles on the vanguard militia forces of Hainan Province, most relevant to SCS disputes. Four of the leading militias will be surveyed in depth.

  • Located on Hainan’s west coast, the Danzhou Militia of Baimajing Harbor played a significant role in China’s operation to seize the Crescent Group of islands from Vietnam in the January 1974 Battle of the Paracel Islands.
  • Established in 1985, the Tanmen Village Maritime Militia Company of Qionghai County on Hainan’s south-southeast coast has long delivered supplies and building materials to China’s Spratly outposts. It was directly involved in the April 2012 Scarborough Shoal Standoff, with the boats of Chen Zebo and another Squad Leader likely summoning Chinese coast guard intervention when boarded by Philippine Navy forces seeking to confiscate a diverse harvest of endangered marine species. The Tanmen Militia benefited greatly from a visit by Xi himself on 8 April 2013, after which Tanmen Village was declared a model village and received further government investment.
  • Learning from the model set forth by the Tanmen Militia, the Sansha City Maritime Militia was established in its new, eponymous municipality in 2013. Given its location, it promises to play an important role in future Paracel affairs.
  • Last but not least, based in Sanya City near the center of Hainan’s southern coast, is the Sanya maritime militia built out of entities like Fugang Fishery Co. Ltd., which was established in 2001. Given its status as the militia perhaps most likely to be used for near-term frontline operations, such as harassment against U.S. or allied FONOPS, it is the subject of this first article in our series.

Read Part One Here.

Dr. Andrew S. Erickson is an Associate Professor in, and a core founding member of, the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute. He serves on the Naval War College Review’s Editorial Board. He is an Associate in Research at Harvard University’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and an expert contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report. In 2013, while deployed in the Pacific as a Regional Security Education Program scholar aboard USS Nimitz, he delivered twenty-five hours of presentations. Erickson is the author of Chinese Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Development (Jamestown Foundation, 2013). He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University. Erickson blogs at www.andrewerickson.com and www.chinasignpost.com. The views expressed here are Erickson’s alone and do not represent the policies or estimates of the U.S. Navy or any other organization of the U.S. government.

Conor Kennedy is a research assistant in the China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He received his MA at the Johns Hopkins University – Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies.