State subsidies, organized recruitment channels, owners linked to the Beijing government: an investigation by the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), published Thursday, November 18, lifts the veil on the new organization of the Chinese maritime militia (” haishang minbing »), The armed wing of the aggressive sanctuary policy pursued by Beijing in its immediate neighborhood.
In the South China Sea, these civilian-looking boats have made a name for themselves to harass Filipino fishermen, cut off the route of American warships, or regroup by dozens in front of certain disputed reefs to put pressure on their riparian countries. Appeared in 1974, the maritime militia had allowed China to seize the Paracel Islands in Vietnam. It rose to power in the 2000s, to support the illegal military constructions of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on the Spratleys and Paracels archipelagos. Until becoming, under the presidency of Xi Jinping since 2012, a spearhead with 300 ships, a professionalized fleet deployed throughout the region in support of the PLA and the coast guard.
The CSIS analyzed precisely 169 vessels. In the event of an incident, as was the case in the spring of 2021 with the organized regrouping of 200 boats in front of the Whitsun reef, China affirms that its fishing vessels… fish independently. But the current tracing means – satellite images and the AIS vessel identification system – make it possible to affirm the contrary, recalls the CSIS: “When boats stroll for days or weeks without a trawl or gear deployed, it is absolutely obvious that they are not engaged in the commercial fishery. “ Ditto when they position themselves as a deterrent “raft”, glued to each other, inactive for long weeks.
Reinforcement and renovation of fishing boats
Two categories of ships constitute this force, adept in the “gray areas” of conflict, between open war and armed peace: dedicated professionals, or “Maritime militia fishing vessels” ; and the fishermen joining it out of opportunism or national sentiment, the “Fishing vessels supporting the Spratleys”. These must be of a minimum size (35 meters and 200 tonnes) and, according to government documents found by CSIS, navigate at least two hundred and eighty days a year in “Specific maritime areas, delimited according to the objectives of national defense, in order to receive their full salaries”. The investigation cites the example of the Gui Bei Yu 88603 and the Gui Bei Yu 39198, present among the fleet massed in March-April 2021 in front of the Whitsun reef. Both of these ships have received state construction grants.
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