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She Doesn’t Look Like It, But This Chinese Coast Guard Vessel Is One Mean Ship ( Source- WAR IS BORING / Author- Robert Beckhusen)

Credits- Internet Image Source- War is Boring Author- Robert Beckhusen Coast guards around the world are often overlooked. Their missions — law enforcement and search and rescue — make them perhaps less bellicose than navies, although coast guards are often formal military branches in their own right, as in the United States. China’s coast guard is more muscular than most. Even combative. And China’s coast guard has one especially combative ship — the CCG3210, formerly known as the Yuzheng 310. CCG3210 has influenced politics in the South China Sea, of which China lays claim to virtually the entire territory. In a recent example from May, the Indonesian destroyer Oswald Siahaan-354 shelled the stern of a Chinese fishing trawler intruding in Indonesian waters near the Natuna Islands. That Indonesia found it appropriate to deploy a heavily-armed destroyer to intercept a fishing boat is partly because of a more aggressive approach by Jakarta to counter Chinese in

The South China Sea's ‘White-Hull’ Warfare ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Koh Swee Lean Collin)

Credits- China.org Source- The National Interest Author-  Koh Swee Lean Collin Coast guard–type forces, commonly called “white hulls,” ought to constitute a stabilizing presence compared to regular navy forces (or “grey hulls”), as sea-power theorist Harold Kearsley wrote in Maritime Power and the Twenty-First Century in 1992. “White hulls” do not convey the same overtly militaristic, war-fighting impression as regular naval forces employed for this purpose. But theory can only go so far when the parties concerned have a different, or even revisionist, interpretation. China, for one, has quashed Kearsley’s idea. The recurring South China Sea incidents are illustrative: no longer are “white hulls” more dovish than their naval counterparts. In some cases, the coast guard can prove to be aggressive while the navy is relatively docile. Outside Asia, the last notable instance of a coast guard exhibiting unusually aggressive behavior was Iceland’s coast guard, the Land

Beijing’s ‘White Hull’ Challenge in the South China Sea ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Koh Swee Lean Collin)

Credits- Wikimapia / Internet image Source- The National Interest Author-  Koh Swee Lean Collin Maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas are often seen as synonymous with the region’s rapid and well-documented naval buildup. It is only in recent years, however, that civilian maritime law enforcement (CMLE) forces have emerged into the picture. While world attention remains focused on the proliferation of high-powered, ‘big ticket’ naval capabilities such as submarines and anti-ship missiles, a CMLE competition amongst claimant states in those maritime flashpoints is rapidly growing. The implications of this competition are wide-ranging insofar as peace and stability in those disputed waters are concerned. For this reason, a recent buildup by the China Coast Guard (CCG; Zhongguo Haijing) deserves attention. Chinese sources indicate what appears to be the second of its giant offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) nearing the stage of induction earlier this month. Bea

China's Coast Guard: A Big Problem or a Big Opportunity? ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Lyle J. Goldstein)

Image credits- Wikimapia / Author Source- The National Interest Author- Lyle J. Goldstein Now that the China Coast Guard is viewed as a major vector of Beijing’s maritime strategy, Washington think tank analysts are working late into the night trying to divine a way to counter China’s armada of imposing “white hulls.”  Powerful water cannon are the new “assassin’s mace” of “grey zone conflict,” so it seems. Giving aid to Vietnam’s maritime law enforcement or having Japan donate patrol cutters to the Philippines are among the ideas that have become fashionable over the past two year. Sowing the first island chain with U.S.-financed radars to enhance “maritime domain awareness,” and by turns embarrass China, forms another fashionable concept.  Of all these proposals, the most ludicrous is to send the U.S. Coast Guard to patrol the beat regularly in the South China Sea. Surely, this most venerable American service is plenty busy saving lives, maintaining good order on th