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Why the US Wants to Send its Coast Guard to the Seas Near China

Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI, TAIWAN - A U.S. plan to steer Coast Guard vessels toward waters
   frequented by Chinese vessels will bulk up Washington's resolve to
   contain Beijing's maritime expansion without inviting a hot conflict,
   analysts believe.

   The U.S. Coast Guard is "strategically homeporting significantly
   enhanced Fast Response Cutters" in the Western Pacific to protect the
   interests of the United States and "partners in the region," National
   Security Advisor Robert O'Brien said in a statement October 23. The
   timing is still being worked out, a U.S. Indo-Pacific Command spokesman
   said Monday.

   Coast Guard vessels will check for any illegal, unreported and
   unregulated fishing that "threatens our sovereignty, as well as the
   sovereignty of our Pacific neighbors and endangers regional stability,"
   O'Brien said.

   China has the world's largest distant-water fishing fleet and its own
   enforcement vessels don't always follow the fleet's movement, Coast
   Guard Commandant and Admiral Karl Schultz said in October. And the U.S.
   plan is not just about fish, he said.

   Increased U.S. Coast Guard activity will show China that the United
   States resolves to check Chinese activity in general without risking
   conflict the way that American naval ships would, experts believe.
   Coast guard vessels are seen widely as defensive while navy ships are
   fitted to launch attacks.

   "It looks tamer [than the navy] but it also signals resolve to confront
   China," said Alan Chong, associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam
   School of International Studies in Singapore. The coast guard, he said,
   "is a way of signaling presence without running the risk of triggering
   a shooting incident between outright navies."

   U.S. President Donald Trump's government, enmeshed in a series of
   disputeswith his country's old Cold War foe,China, has raised the
   frequency of brief navy ship passages in a sea that China disputes with
   Taiwan and four Southeast Asian countries. It sells arms to some of
   China's rivals in that dispute, too, and it has stepped up Asian
   maritime collaboration with Western allies such as Japan.

   President-elect Joe Biden will keep up pressure on China after he takes
   office next year, analysts believe.

   Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam vie with Beijing
   for sovereignty in the disputed waterway, the South China Sea. Backed
   by the world's third strongest armed forces, China has upset the other
   claimants since 2010 by landfilling tiny islets, in some cases for
   military use.

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