Rekamragam.my.id - A Chinese scientific ship packed with electronic surveillance equipment docks at a port in Sri Lanka. Hundreds of fishing boats anchored for months between disputed islands in the South China Sea. Added to this are ferries for ocean navigation, capable of transporting heavy vehicles and large amounts of people.
All are ostensibly civilian ships, but experts and regional governments say they are concerned they are actually part of a Chinese military-civilian merger strategy, barely concealed by Beijing, with which it has enhanced its naval capabilities.
The Chinese Navy is already the world's largest by number of ships and has been rapidly building new warships as part of a vast military expansion. It launched its first domestically designed and built aircraft carrier in June and will soon be joined by five destroyers.
Such strengthening is occurring at a time when China is trying to wield greater influence in the region. Its growing military activities around the semi-autonomous island of Taiwan —claimed by China as part of its territory—, the search for new security agreements with islands in the Pacific and the construction of artificial islands in disputed waters to strengthen its territorial claims in the South China Sea, which are contested by the United States and its allies.
Civilian vessels do more than just increase numbers, performing tasks that would be difficult for the Navy to do.
For example, in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, China pays commercial fishing vessels more than they would earn by simply fishing at anchor for a minimum of 280 days a year in order to support China's claim to the disputed archipelago, he explained. Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"China can use vessels that are nominally civilian and that are clearly under state instructions and paid for by the state to undermine the sovereignty of its neighbors, while plausibly denying that the state is responsible," he denounced.
China has been using trawlers for military purposes for decades, but has increased the numbers significantly in recent years with the creation of a "Central Spratly Flotilla" funded by a government subsidy program launched by President Xi Jinping's government. which helps build new ships, among other things. Those ships "appeared overnight" after China built port infrastructure on artificial islands built in the Spratlys that could be used for resupply, Poling added.
Currently, there are between 300 and 400 ships deployed there at any given time, he said.
The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and other countries also have territorial claims in the archipelago, which is located in a rich fishing area and is an important shipping route. It is thought that under the seabed there are unexplored reserves of gas and oil.
Additionally, Chinese ships are preventing others from fishing in the area. They have been slowly displacing them and there is little governments can do about it, said Jay Batongbacal, director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea at the University of the Philippines.
"Since these are ostensibly civilian vessels, the navies cannot deal with them because China could accuse them of provoking an incident and using force against civilians," he added. "They take advantage of sub-boundary ambiguities in order to trigger a self-defense response."
In a widely reported incident, a Chinese steel trawler rammed and sank a Philippine wooden trawler anchored northeast of the Spratly Islands in 2019, leaving its crew behind, who were later rescued by a Vietnamese fishing boat. Despite a diplomatic protest from the Philippines, China denied the incident was intentional, calling it an "accidental collision."
In addition to the 800 to 1,000 commercial fishing boats in the Spratly flotilla, China has about 200 other vessels as part of a professional naval militia, according to a November study co-authored by Poling and based on an analysis of official Chinese reports. , satellite images and other sources.
The professional military is better equipped, with trained crews and under state control, Poling said. It is used for more aggressive operations, such as harassing foreign oil and gas operations, he added.
In the event of a conflict, China's use of civilian vessels would complicate the rules of engagement, he said.
“You wouldn't want to treat every Chinese fishing vessel like a combatant.
armed, but in fact some may be well-armed combatants,” Poling warned.
China has also been deploying civilian investigation vessels for military tasks in areas where the navy could not operate without provoking a response, said Ridzwan Rahmat, a Singapore-based analyst for military intelligence company Janes.
“If you deploy gray-hulled ships, your adversary could also deploy gray-hulled ships as a reciprocal step, which makes things more dangerous for everyone,” he said, alluding to the usual color of military ships. "To avoid this, China has been deploying white-hulled ships, to reinforce its presence without escalating things."
There are many Western export controls that prohibit China from obtaining technology for military use, but Beijing manages to get around them by building these civilian vessels, despite the fact that "in all but name they are military," Rahmat said.
The Zhu Hai Yun autonomous ship is believed to be one such vessel, capable of launching aerial, surface and underwater drones "to launch marine scientific surveys," according to the Chinese state-run Global Times.
The ship, which completed its first autonomous test run in June, could also create military maps of the bottom of the South China Sea, including important underwater routes around Taiwan, Rahmat added.
"China has been increasing its underwater patrols, and to make sure it can do that, it needs a map of the underwater terrain," he said.
Chinese methods drew the ire of regional rival India last month when Beijing tried to dock the Yuang Wang 5 at Sri Lanka's Hambantota Port, not far off India's southeast coast, for refueling, at a time when India was preparing to test a new missile.
The ship is officially a scientific survey ship equipped with sensors that can be used to track satellites, but the same equipment can be used to collect data from a missile launch.
Sri Lanka, mired in a severe economic crisis and heavily dependent on India for aid, initially refused to allow the ship to dock, citing Indian concerns.
However, China operates the port of Hambantota, having received a 99-year lease on the facility—built with Chinese funds—after Sri Lanka went into loan default in 2017. Following high-level consultations with Beijing, Sri Lanka allowed the Yuan Wang 5 to dock from August 16 to 22.
On August 23, India successfully tested its new missile, designed to protect ships from close-range aerial threats. "I suspect the test was put off until the Chinese spy ship left," Rahmat said.
China has not tried to disguise its military use of ocean ferries, which it has required to meet its defense standards since 2016, so that they can admit military vehicles such as tanks, said Mike Dahm, a retired US naval intelligence officer. who has written on the subject for the China Maritime Studies Institute of the United States Naval College.
State television videos show military vehicles and troops boarding the ferries and setting sail for the high seas, openly declaring that they are testing "how to use civilian transportation resources to execute military tasks." The most recent such exercise concluded this month.
That could be aimed at intimidating Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory and which Beijing has not ruled out trying to take by force, Dahm said. This fits with the government's message that its population contributes to national security, he added.
China currently lacks enough amphibious craft to transport the number of troops needed across the 160-kilometre (100-mile) Taiwan Strait for a potential invasion of the island, and the ferries could be a temporary measure if a crisis prompted China to launch it, Rahmat said.
China may also not want to bear the costs of building and maintaining a "huge amphibious navy" for an indefinite period, Dahm estimated.
Amphibious craft are used to land troops and vehicles on a beach, while ferries provide port-to-port movement, which would mean they would only be effective if China captures Taiwanese ports in usable condition, he added.
Still, in the event of a crisis, the Chinese military could attempt a risky move, such as dropping amphibious vehicles from ferries at sea or using floating lanes, Dahm said.
"There is always the possibility of China conducting a high-risk operation against Taiwan with the possibility of losing large numbers of civilian vessels," he warned.
