China’s illegal sand dredging in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea have severely damaged the ecosystem, affecting fishing and the marine economy, academics say. Such activities are part of Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics, using commercial vessels to suppress the rights and sovereignty of countries in the region, and then dispatching military jets and ships to engage in increasingly aggressive maneuvers under the guise of protecting civilians.
At the International Conference on the Impact of Sand Dredging on the Sea in Taipei on Wednesday last week, Gregory Poling, director of the Southeast Asia program at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that China banned dredging in its territorial waters while subsidizing civilian vessels to engage in the same behavior under the protection of the Chinese Coast Guard, which has severely infringed on the rights of other nations. Since 2013, Beijing has been building artificial islands near the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), causing massive environmental damage. It is part of Beijing’s strategy to use its coast guard and artificial islands to deny access to the South China Sea to states that deny China’s territorial claims in the region.
For the past 20 years, Chinese dredgers have operated illegally in the Taiwan Strait. A recent survey found that holes from dredging cover nearly 40 percent of the seabed off islands in Lienchiang County. Undersea cables connecting Taiwan proper to outlying islands have been cut at least 27 times in the past five years by Chinese boats. Military pundits say that those incidents could be part of preparations for China’s navy to blockade Taiwan in a potential invasion.
China has been using civilian boats, including research, fishing, dredging and trafficking vessels, for military purposes for decades, part of a civil-military strategy to enhance its maritime capabilities. Those civilian forces have significantly increased in number as a result of a government subsidy program begun under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). In addition to about 1,000 commercial fishing boats in its “Spratly fleet,” China has about 200 vessels in its professional maritime militia, which have also participated in some Chinese military exercises, a study coauthored by Poling showed.
The civilian ships have also been part of China’s “gray zone” tactics, which use nontraditional methods to pursue security objectives without triggering armed conflict. Such tactics include paying a few hundred ships to anchor in the South China Sea to deter other nations’ trawlers and fortify China’s territorial claims. Claiming to protect the civilian boats, Chinese Coast Guard ships and military vessels have increased their aggressive activities in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, with Chinese ships shadowing and hindering other countries’ maritime patrols. On Sunday, a Chinese warship came within 137m of the USS Chung-Hoon as it cut in front of the US destroyer and Canada’s HMCS Montreal, forcing them to slow down to avoid a collision in the Strait.
Such illegal and provocative behavior by Chinese vessels to hinder free and safe navigation in international waters reveals not only China’s ambition to extend its territorial claims, but also its intentions to alter the international order. It substantially increases the risk of a disastrous conflict in the region.
To deter China’s unscrupulous maritime activities, Taiwan has amended laws and bolstered patrols to prevent illegal dredging and other offenses in its territorial waters. More collaboration with international organizations is needed to protect free navigation and enforce international law to maintain order and stability in the regions coveted by China.
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