Fishers of Men: China’s Militia at Sea

U.S. maritime experts are warning of a newly prominent force testing stability in the South China Sea: China’s maritime militia. At the Jamestown Foundation’s annual China security conference on May 12, U.S. Naval War College professor Andrew Erickson warned that China’s greater use of minimally trained militia forces increases the risk of miscalculation in the ever more contested waters of the South China Sea. “We need to shine light on this,” Erickson said, in particular as U.S. Naval forces are increasingly conducting freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) in the area.

Moreover, China is blurring the connection between its “fishing militia” and its state supporters, causing some to term the maritime militia “little blue men,” an allusion to Russia’s “little green men” in the Crimea, i.e. a military force carrying out operations for a state without acknowledging their affiliation. Erickson and his coauthor Conor M. Kennedy have documented the maritime militia’s connection to the Chinese government in their new paper, insisting that this idea is no longer simply theoretical.

The reason for the militia’s expanded mandate? Erickson and Kennedy explain: “While the maritime militia is not a new addition to China’s militia system, it is receiving greater emphasis since China now aspires to become a great maritime power and because maritime disputes in China’s near seas are a growing concern.”

Background

Although much attention has been paid to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, the PLAN is by no means the only plank in China’s maritime power, which also includes the China Coast Guard (CCG), other maritime law enforcement (MLE) agencies, and its increasingly active maritime militia.

The repurposing of civilian personnel and resources for military use has been an important part of PLA operations throughout its history. The maritime militia is the sea-based application of this principle, taking part in island seizure campaigns in the 1950s and assisting the PLAN during its 1974 eviction of South Vietnam from the Spratly Islands. In the 2009 Impeccable incident, five closely coordinated Chinese government vessels surrounded the USS Impeccable, a U.S. Navy ocean surveillance ship monitoring submarine activity. And in the 2014 standoff between China’s oil rig and Vietnamese forces, the maritime militia formed what Erickson termed a “layered cabbage” formation, with several layers of militia positioned around the rig to interfere with and repulse opposing Vietnamese vessels.

Intent

The Guardian quoted Abraham Denmark, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asian policy,  as saying, “Some of their [China’s] fishing vessels and coastguards [are] acting in unprofessional manners in the vicinity of the military forces or fishing vessels of other countries in a way that’s designed to attempt to establish a degree of control around disputed features.” Denmark speculated that China calibrated these activities to avoid escalation to conflict while gradually advancing its control over disputed areas.

According to a detailed report in Singapore’s Straits Times, China claims its fishermen have fished the waters around the Spratly Islands for generations. Zhang Hongzhou, an expert on China's fishing industry and maritime security at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), explains, “Their fishing activities and records are one of the main pieces of evidence for China's historical claims in the South China Sea.”

Missions

According to Erickson and Kennedy, “The primary role for China’s militia is to be an external defense force; its secondary role, to be a domestic security force.” This includes: logistical and other support to the PLA and PLAN; emergency response, such as maritime search and rescue and assisting MLE; the relatively new mission of maritime rights protection, i.e. “normalizing China’s administrative control of the seas”; and other support missions such as reconnaissance, light weapons use, and even missile defense and sabotage.

It is the third mission--maritime rights protection--that is driving the maritime militia into the limelight. China appears confident using its militia vessels in close proximity to U.S. and other vessels. Erickson warned that the United States must be prepared for this, particularly if it decides to escalate FONOPS.

Coordination

The militia normally falls under the local governments’ People’s Armed Forces Departments but can also be employed under a hybrid chain of control through MLE agencies. It shares a close connection with the PLAN and Erickson has documented instances of PLAN officers in uniform training the maritime militia.

Reuters quoted a Hainan government advisor as saying that the city-level branches of the People's Armed Forces Department, under the direction of military and local Party authorities, provide basic military training to fishermen, including search and rescue operations, contending with disasters at sea, and “safeguarding Chinese sovereignty.”

The Chinese government is also offering material support for the fishermen’s new duties, granting subsidies for heavier, steel-hulled vessels and providing Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) equipment for at least 50,000 vessels, enabling fishing vessels to contact the Chinese Coast Guard in maritime emergencies, including encounters with foreign ships.

Government Support

The Straits Times also points out that as China’s fishing industry has expanded and nearby stocks have diminished, fishermen have been forced further afield to haul in their catch. This leaves them with a choice: eke out a meager living doing something other than fishing or receive government support for performing patriotic duty while fishing.

Hainan Province has promised to provide a pension of US$8,600 per year for maritime militia members injured in the line of national duty. One fisherman remarked that the Chinese government paid his boat owner US$37,500 to go to the Spratlys for two weeks in 2012. This, along with a sense of performing patriotic duty, seems to have inspired many fishermen to join the militia.

Analysis

During the 2012 Scarborough Shoal incident, the Philippines’ initial use of a naval vessel seemed aggressive compared with Chinese use of coast guard vessels, making other interested parties wary of supporting the “aggressor” (or alternately providing a convenient excuse not to oppose China). Chinese use of supposedly unaffiliated fishing vessels is a continuation of this tactic. Although this ruse is now an open secret, China is still likely to keep up the pretense, but only for consistency’s sake. China’s maritime militia is one more way that China is attempting to maximize its present advantage and future position while maintaining regional stability. The nations that watched China gain the upper hand at Scarborough will not be so sanguine once China touches areas that involve their own interests, but much will depend on how the United States balances firmness and flexibility – both publicly and privately – in its messages to China and its neighbors.