BANGKOK: A Chinese scientific ship bristling with surveillance equipment docked in a Sri Lankan port. Hundreds of fishing boats anchored for months at a time among disputed islands in the South China Sea. And ocean-going ferries, built to be capable of carrying heavy vehicles and large loads of people.
All are ostensibly civilian ships, but experts and uneasy regional governments say they are part of a Chinese civil-military fusion strategy, little concealed by Beijing, that enhances its maritime capabilities.
China’s navy is already the world’s largest by ship count, and has been rapidly building new warships as part of a wider military expansion.
In the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands, for example, China pays commercial trawlers to drop anchor for 280 days a year to support Beijing’s claim to the disputed archipelago, said Gregory Poling, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
“China is able to use civilian vessels that are clearly state directed, state paid to eat away the sovereignty of its neighbours, but then plausibly deny that the state is responsible,” he said.
China has been using civilian fishing trawlers for military purposes for decades, but has significantly increased the numbers recently with the creation of a “Spratly Backbone Fleet” out of a government subsidy programme begun under President Xi Jinping, which helps cover building new vessels, among other things. — AP
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