They seemingly navigate international waters posing as a fishing fleet, but in reality, this force of vessels operates alongside China’s military to further Beijing’s political objectives. This is China’s maritime militia, a shadowy armada whose existence China denies.
“China employs its maritime militia as a paramilitary force,” Raymond Powell, director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University, told Diálogo. “Although they pose as fishing vessels, they usually do not fish but engage in aggressive maneuvers against vessels from other countries, with group attacks, blockades, and ramming, in close coordination with the Chinese Coast Guard.”
While China’s maritime militia, also known as the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM), is primarily active in the South China Sea, as part of Beijing’s efforts to exert its territorial claims, experts expressed concerns about its potential presence in Latin America due to the brazen, illegal, and destructive actions of its large-scale fishing fleet in the region.
“Several international reports […] have repeatedly denounced how Chinese vessels involved in illegal fishing not only fish, but represent an opaque naval force used directly by the Beijing government,” Argentine news site Infobae reported.
In August 2022, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter James, which was conducting joint patrol with the Ecuadorian Navy off the Galapagos Islands, to inspect for signs of illegal fishing from Chinese squid-fishing boats, had to take evasive action to avoid being rammed by a Chinese vessel that aggressively turned toward it, as two other Chinese boats sped away to escape, AP reported at the time.
“The high-seas confrontation represents a potentially dangerous breach of international maritime protocol,” AP reported.
Gray zone
The first use of fishing militias in the South China Sea by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) dates back to the 1970s, having since been a central role in asserting Beijing’s claims in the region, think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) indicated in a report.
Today, experts believe that the PAFMM could have access to some hundreds of thousands of fishing vessels of all sizes, some outfitted with fixed armament, although the militia’s objective is to “win without fighting by overwhelming the adversary with swarms of fishing vessels,” Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst with think tank RAND, said in a report.
Conducting surveillance, harassing, ramming, and using high pressure water hoses against foreign vessels, and otherwise escalating tensions, are some of the tactics used by the PAFMM.
Part of the strength of the militia is its deniability, which empowers its vessels to harass and intimidate foreign ships, while allowing China to deny being affiliated to these activities, researchers Shuxian Luo and Jonathan Panter, of the John Hopkins University and Columbia University respectively, wrote in a report. It also allows China to exert pressure and coerce nations that might fear provoking the PRC.
“Because China says they are not military vessels, it can claim any action against them by foreign navies or coast guards would constitute an attack on Chinese civilians,” CNN reported.
Although there is global awareness of the growth of this militia and the role it plays in China’s operations, there are no precise details of the size or composition of the fleet.
“Some of these vessels are funded directly by the Chinese government,” Powell said. “Others belong to private companies that receive government subsidies, to help bolster China’s presence in distant waters.”
Another tactic employed by these vessels is known as rafting, which involves tying several vessels together by anchor to create semi-permanent floating outposts that are difficult to disperse because of their collective bulk. These formations make it possible to establish control over specific zones, avoid overt militarization of the region, and complicate diplomatic responses. Their advantage lies in their legal ambiguity, SeaLight indicates.
“China has geopolitical aspirations that contradict legal frameworks. They don’t seem to care much,” María Isabel Puerta, adjunct professor of Political Sciences at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida, told Diálogo. “It’s a way of masking the pressure exerted by China. It has to do with the recognition that there is a legal order that they intend to bypass. So, they use these vessels as a bulkhead, because it’s clear they are working in coordination.”
China has shown how, through the use of its maritime militia, it ignores the sovereignty of its neighbors, violates international law, and usurps strategic points to exert political, economic, and military influence, Haroro Ingram, country director for the Philippines at the United States Institute of Peace, said in a December 11 opinion piece for foreign affairs platform War on the Rocks. “Its aggressive expansionism, its intimidation campaigns, and its occupation of resource-rich waters threaten not only the security of the Indo-Pacific area, but global security.”
