Law lets China gunboats fire at ships in SCS

Law lets China gunboats fire at ships in SCS

A new law is to permit China’s coast guards to fire at vessels within its “jurisdictional waters”. This steps up Beijing’s aggression in the South China Sea.

The law bolsters China’s bullying. “Jurisdictional waters” encroach Southeast Asian states’ exclusive economic zones that China’s communist rulers illegally claim.

The law exposes China’s duplicity as well. Beijing is in talks with ASEAN neighbors for a Code of Conduct in the SCS. Such CoC will not be a pact of equals. By escalating armed aggression, it is telling small neighbors it wants only docility from them.

“This opens the possibility of coast guard ships using more explicit armed force in disputed areas of the SCS,” the think tank Global Security reported last weekend. Beijing’s new legislation would let coast guards use rifles and deck-mounted weapons at will.

The Chinese Communist Party-Central Military Commission, which oversees the armed forces, first proposed the law in late September. A draft was posted on the National People’s Congress website Wednesday, Global Security’s Drake Long wrote. The measure is open for comments until Dec. 3, after which Congress deliberations commence.

The new law was “designed to intimidate,” analyzed Hunter Stires, a fellow with the US Naval War College. “The CCP is telling other claimant governments that China means business. This is a signal not to challenge China Coast Guard operations in waters that are rightfully the exclusive economic zones of Southeast Asian nations.”

Law lets China gunboats fire at ships in SCS

Ostensibly the law is to use force against arms-smuggling, drugs-smuggling, hiding and abetting criminals, obstructing law enforcement and illegal economic activity by foreign vessels in China’s “jurisdictional waters.”

But China is expected to use it against legitimate fishing, exploration and patrol vessels of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. China gunboats escort poachers in the EEZs of those five countries. Its coast guards falsely claim the EEZs to be part of China’s “nine-dash line” sea jurisdiction. They machinegun, water-cannon and ram the unarmed civilian craft.

The Hague international court outlawed Beijing’s “nine-dash line” claim in July 2016. It upheld the Philippine complaint that China violated its sovereign rights in occupying Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, concreting seven reefs into island-fortresses and driving away Filipino fishermen.

The new Beijing law only formalizes what Chinese gunboats have been doing for years. Chinese maritime law enforcement claim that it is the five countries’ fishermen, operating in their respective EEZs, who trespass Chinese waters.

In 2013 four civilian maritime surveillance and enforcement agencies were placed under the China Coast Guard. Three years later the Coast Guard was subsumed by the People’s Liberation Army-Navy. The latter also organized thousands of fishing trawlers into a maritime militia to support military aggression in the neighbors’ EEZs.

“There is no concrete definition of ‘jurisdictional waters’,” Global Security noted. “Nor does China explicitly state what areas it considers to be covered under that term.”

China illegally occupies or patrols reefs 800 to 1,000 miles from its coast. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea grants littoral states 200-mile EEZs plus, if scientifically proven, additional 150 miles Extended Continental Shelf. China unilaterally claims two dozen reefs within the five neighbors’ EEZs, and well outside its own EEZ.

“The primary target of this move and China’s activity in the SCS are the (neighbors’) more than 3.7 million local civilian mariners who depend on access to the waters for their daily livelihood,” Long quoted Stires. “The Chinese Communist Party knows that it is the behavior and de facto acceptance by this large civilian population that will decide whether the UNCLOS remains in force in the SCS or is usurped by China’s hierarchical and continental vision of maritime sovereignty.”

The US State Department warned Beijing in July against any more sea aggression on its allies Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. It warned of dire consequences should Beijing persist. The US is also strengthening the Quad Alliance with Japan, Australia and India for free access to the Indo-Pacific. The British, French and Canadian navies buttress US freedom-of-navigation patrols in the SCS.

Law lets China gunboats fire at ships in SCS

Crucial provisions in an SCS Code of Conduct are status quo and non-military aggression. Before it is signed, Beijing intends to expand its control of reefs and waters, then claim that as start-off point for status quo. It feigns civilian Coast Guard patrols but actually is militarizing the region through its armed forces.

Beijing has built missile pads, airstrips and naval ports in three of the seven concreted reefs. It regularly lands fighters, bombers and troop transports on the artificial islands. From there its Navy and affiliated Coast Guard menace Filipino fishermen and patrol in Pagasa Island, Palawan; Recto Bank and Malampaya offshore gas field.

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Law lets China gunboats fire at ships in SCS

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