Beijing’s Nine Dash Line claims are laughable, but it’s a deadly serious matter
The US Navy currently has four of its eleven nuclear-powered aircraft carriers deployed on operations. USSs Gerald R Ford and Dwight D Eisenhower – the Ike – recently grabbed the headlines when they met up in the Eastern Mediterranean as the conflict in Gaza threatened to spill over into something wider. It is too soon to say if it was their loudly trumpeted arrival that contained the fighting, or whether it will endure, but the arrival of the carrier groups definitely gave Iran and its proxies pause for thought.
Meanwhile, two Pacific Fleet supercarriers, the USS Ronald Reagan and the USS Carl Vinson, have been operating in the Philippine sea with Japanese and other allied warships. Not to be outdone by their Atlantic Fleet siblings the two vessels have also met up for the customary ‘200,000 tons of naval diplomacy’ photoshoot. Like the Ford and the Ike, their timing is also good, given recent Chinese activity in the South China Sea.
Recent Chinese misdeeds are just the latest in a long series. Aggressive Chinese coast guard and ‘fisher militia’ activity has been normalised there for many years now as Beijing attempts to claim sovereignty over basically the entire South China Sea in defiance of all relevant and internationally upheld conventions. But there is one area in particular that is attracting more than its fair share of headlines and bad behaviour.
Nearly twenty-five years ago, the Philippine government ordered the grounding of the BRP Sierra Madre (a WWII-vintage tank landing ship) on the Second Thomas Shoal as part of an attempt to assert control of this resource-rich area within the Philippines’ Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ). The old ship, still crewed by the Philippine navy and marines, has been the subject of regular interdiction operations from the People’s Republic. Initially these were attempts to prevent food and supplies reaching its crew, but increasingly China now seeks to prevent the old ship being repaired as it gradually falls apart.
Swarming by many Chinese vessels and ‘riding off’ – shoving Philippine boats off course or away – are now routine, as is the use of water cannons and blinding lasers. The latest clashes saw fifteen Chinese vessels of various types and sizes blocking two small wooden boats on their way to the Sierra Madre. Needless to say, collisions at sea resulted.
These should not be taken lightly. Photos and videos of the small wooden boat passing under the shadow of the bow of Sucha-class Chinese coastguard cutter would give any mariner a shudder. These ships displace close to 4000 tons, i.e. not much less than a Royal Navy frigate. The wooden boat probably displaces less than one hundred tons. You don’t have to be a physicist to know how this could end.
To give an extreme example of what can happen when big steel vessels hit small wooden ones, I was in a frigate a mile or so astern of a US carrier in the Gulf once. Manoeuvring at high speed in the dark, the carrier hit a dhow. We spent two days looking for survivors and found none. In fact, all we found was the boat’s wooden prow. Our minehunters were then called in to help and they found the engine block on the sea bed … and that was it. Riding off can turn from shouting and yelling to a number of people dead in a very short period.
Something similar will happen in the South China Sea if the Chinese do not abate their behaviour there, it’s only a matter of time. And then what? Coastguards are supposed to save life, not take it. And be in no doubt, these Chinese cutters and boats are operating under orders from the top.
In the meantime, it is interesting to note how savvy the Philippine coastguard is at capturing these interactions – putting drones up and embedding journalists to film in broad daylight what this harassment looks like. It does an excellent job of exposing the inevitable following announcement from Beijing about “reckless behaviour” by the Filipinos for what it is – absurd.
Beijing says they are doing this to prevent the Philippines from building a permanent structure there when the Sierra Madre eventually succumbs to the sea. This, again, is an incredible statement given what China has built at Mischief Reef just 17 miles away, also firmly within Manila’s EEZ.
How the situation at the Second Thomas Shoal progresses from here isn’t clear. The gradual increase in classic grey zone operations there by the coastguard is a steady pattern. China is normalising aggressive and illegal behaviour there presumably in the hope that one day everyone stops noticing and their ambition for control of the South China Sea becomes a reality.
But they are doing it too fast and too often in my view, forcing a huge increase in diplomatic statements and alliance building. In response to the latest attack, President Biden described the mutual defence treaty with the Philippines as ‘ironclad’, not a bad word when not too far away are two massive warships which might decide to exercise their freedom of navigation through the South China Sea at any point.
We’re not quite at the ‘two carriers steaming past Mischief Shoal’ photo yet but as in the Eastern Med. But it never hurts to have a few big hitters in the golf bag.
Source : Telegraph
