Power to the Provinces: The Devolution of China’s Maritime Rights Protection

In March 2013, China passed legislation integrating four of its five maritime law enforcement (MLE) agencies into the newly-created China Coast Guard, under the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) (see also China Brief, March 28, 2013). [1] This decision, long called for by people both in and out of the Chinese government, was intended to improve coordination and reduce redundancies at the central government level. Chinese observers immediately placed it in the context of Beijing’s efforts to improve its ability to enforce China’s maritime claims in Asia. They hoped the formerly independent agencies would come together “to form a fist out of fingers,” creating synergistic effects that would strengthen China’s administrative control over disputed waters.

This centralization, very much a work in progress, has overshadowed another organizational developments well worth noting. Until recently, maritime rights protection (MRP)—or using law enforcement as a means of defending and advancing China’s position in its maritime disputes—fell almost entirely within the responsibility of China’s central-level MLE bureaucracies. Since roughly 2010, the MLE forces of China’s eleven coastal provinces and provincial-level cities, formerly content to hug the coast in boats and small ships, have increasingly put to sea in large-displacement cutters and sailed to troubled waters for the stated purpose of confronting “illegal” foreign activities. This development has noteworthy repercussions for both China and the other states of maritime Asia.

The Old Division of Labor

The advent of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), which China ratified in 1996, created the impetus to establish a new central-level maritime agency, one operating large-displacement ships capable of patrolling new zones of jurisdiction hundreds of nautical miles from the coast. The need for such an organization was especially acute given that China’s views on coastal state rights to administer exclusive economic zones (EEZs) differs from the United States, among others, and China is party to numerous disputes involving sovereignty over islands and maritime boundary demarcation. Thus, in October 1998, China established the China Marine Surveillance (CMS), under the SOA, with the primary mission of safeguarding China’s maritime rights and interests.

The CMS initially consisted of three central-level department: a North Sea Department in Qingdao, an East Sea Department in Shanghai and a South Sea Department in Guangzhou. Each of these departments managed three to four divisions, located at different cities within departmental jurisdiction. Aside from enforcing environmental protection laws, the chief focus of these units was to perform weiquan zhifa—literally, law enforcement for the purpose of rights protection. In the first years of the CMS’s existence, this primarily meant monitoring and sometimes obstructing foreign activities within China’s EEZs, which it did on the legal basis of the Provisions of the People’s Republic of China on Administration of Foreign-related Marine Scientific Research (1996) and the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Exclusive Economic Zone and the Continental Shelf (1998). These laws assert China’s interpretation of its rights under UNCLOS to regulate foreign scientific activities within China’s EEZ and are frequently cited as justification for objecting to foreign surveillance in these waters.

Over time, MRP missions evolved to include patrolling disputed waters. Sometimes these patrols were declaratory in nature, a mission captured by the Chinese phrase “show presence, manifest jurisdiction and declare sovereignty.” Eventually, however, MLE forces began conducting operations to forcibly deny other states and their citizens use of the sea and assert Chinese rights. For a decade after the founding of the CMS, these missions fell under the exclusive purview of central-level units. For example, the task force charged with safeguarding Chinese surveying activities near the Paracel Islands from Vietnamese obstruction in June 2007 comprised vessels drawn from the East Sea and South Sea Departments. CMS 46 and CMS 51, both belonging to the East Sea Department, took part in China’s first administrative patrol of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in December 2008. CMS 75 and CMS 84, the first to arrive at Scarborough Shoal to confront the Philippine Navy’s Gregorio del Pilar in April 2012, both belonged to the South Sea Department.

Until 2010, all new large-displacement ship construction went to central-level departments. In 1999, the State Council approved plans to build 13 new large (>1,000 tonnes) CMS cutters in two phases. The Phase One ships, six total, were evenly distributed to CMS’s three central-level departments in 2005. The Phase Two ships, seven total, joined the three departments in 2010–11. This preference applied to second-hand transfers as well: The 11 former Chinese Navy ships transferred to the CMS in 2012 all ended up at central-level units (Renminwang, January 1, 2013).

While central government units conducted foreign policy in blue water, coastal provinces and provincial-level cities performed the CMS’s second core mission, environmental protection. This primarily meant managing coastal development: preventing illegal exploitation of coastal resources (sand, stone, etc.) and curbing unauthorized discharge of pollutants into the sea. Their organizations mirrored those of the central government, with a provincial-level department overseeing several divisions. The provincial-level units mostly operated boats and small ships. Despite the obvious importance of the environmental protection mission, coastal provinces did not relish investing in these forces. As late as 2003, three coastal provinces—Guangxi, Hainan and Shanghai—still had not set up the relevant CMS departments. [2]

China’s other important MRP agency, the Fisheries Law Enforcement Commission (FLEC), had a very similar division of labor. It comprised three central government-administered departments—the Yellow/Bohai Sea Department, the East China Sea Department and the South China Sea Department. They owned and operated FLEC’s oceangoing cutters. They also performed MRP missions such as escorting Chinese fishermen to disputed waters in the South China Sea and conducting declaratory patrols to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. At the same time, each province operated its own FLEC units, which enforced fisheries law on and near the shore, rarely venturing into blue water.

Power to the Provinces

In 2009, the SOA began taking steps to alter this longstanding division of labor. It encouraged provincial-level CMS departments to play a more active role in MRP activities. The impetus for this decision may have been the central government’s desire for the coastal provinces—the prime beneficiaries of access to the sea—to assume some of the financial burdens of MRP. In 2009, provincial-level forces from Guangdong, Liaoning and Guangxi began conducting MRP operations. [3] Provincial-level FLEC units began making regular MRP patrols at about the same time: The 500 tonne FLEC cutters operated by Hainan, Guangxi and Guangdong led the way, operating near the Spratly Islands in 2010.

Most provincial-level CMS and FLEC departments, however, were ill-equipped to participate in MRP activities. They invariably operated small ships, which have poor endurance and are vulnerable to high seas. Moreover, in MRP efforts, size matters for another reason—larger ships are more intimidating.

The central government took a major step towards addressing the material limitations of the provincial-level fleets in 2010. In the wake of Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain near the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in September 2010, China announced plans to help provincial-level CMS departments procure a total of 36 new cutters, dwarfing the combined output of Phase One and Phase Two projects. This new plan comprised 14 600-tonne cutters, 15 1,000-tonne cutters and seven 1,500-tonne cutters (China Ocean News, December 21, 2010). Chinese shipbuilders delivered the first of these, a 1,000 tonne ship belonging to Fujian, in February 2013. Most have or will be delivered by the end of 2014. Some have China Coast Guard colors/pennant numbers, while others have CMS colors/pennant numbers. Provincial-level fisheries law enforcement departments have also taken the cue. Guangxi will soon receive a pair of fisheries law enforcement ships, each displacing 1,764 tonnes. These vessels, identified as FLEC 45005 and FLEC 45013, will primarily conduct MRP patrols in the Gulf of Tonkin, the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands (China Ocean News, June 5). 

The provinces frequently cite the primary function of these new vessels: protecting China’s maritime rights and interests against foreign encroachment. The ships that have already reached the fleets are doing precisely this. For instance, on its maiden voyage in July 2013, CCG 2113, a Jiangsu ship, pursued and verbally harassed the Impeccable, a U.S. Navy surveillance vessel (China Ocean News, February 21; Youtube, July 3, 2013). This was a separate reported episode from the well-known 2009 incident, when the U.S. government accused the Chinese military of nearly causing a collision. In April 2013, CCG 2112, a Fujian vessel, did sentry duty at the Second Thomas Shoal, the site of the dilapidated remains of the Sierra Madre, a vessel grounded by the Philippines government in 1999 that still hosts a small garrison of Philippine marines (China Ocean News, April 4). Guangdong’s CCG 3111 and 3112 have been described as a “models” for provincial-level ships taking part in these missions: Since their commissioning in mid-2013, both have completed MRP operations in the East China Sea and the South China Sea (China Ocean News, June 13).

In the coming years, developments in Hainan will merit special attention. Much of the two million square kilometers of maritime territory claimed by China in the South China Sea falls under Hainan’s jurisdiction, which thus overlaps with waters claimed by other countries. In the past, Hainan has generally ceded administration to central-level FLEC and CMS units. However, recent events—the elevation of Sansha on Woody Island to a prefecture-level city in July 2012, Hainan’s receipt of two large-displacement law enforcement cutters in 2013, its lobbying for central government support to further expand its fleet and new provincial-level fisheries “measures” taking effect in 2014—suggest that the province could assume a much bigger MRP role in the South China Sea (China Ocean News, January 20).

Large Displacement (>1,000 tonne) Provincial-level Rights Protection Cutters

* Bold = expected delivery.

Implications

In the last several years, the central government has encouraged and empowered coastal provinces to take part in blue water rights protection patrols, a mission once only performed by central-level units, and the provinces have answered the call with great alacrity. This development has noteworthy implications for China’s use of MLE forces as an instrument of statecraft.

First, this trend clearly undermines Beijing’s push for greater centralized control over MLE activities that prompted the reforms of 2013. Central-level SOA and FLEC bureaucracies provide “guidance” to the provincial-level departments, a delicate relationship given that the provinces own the ships and bear operating and maintenance costs (Nanfang Zhoumo, February 21). Planning almost certainly involves a process of negotiation between the center, which focuses on the larger strategic value of enforcing territorial claims, and the provinces, which prioritize local concerns over patrolling distant disputed islands with no direct benefit to the provincial governments. The intricacies of the central/province relationship, however, are difficult to discern. The diffusion of provincial-level rights protection units is no doubt leading to wasteful redundancies. Moreover, coordination between central-level and provincial-level units is probably hampered by incompatible standards, practices and equipment. [4] The SOA recognizes the problems with the central/province relationship. In January 2014, SOA Director Liu Cigui presented a report at the National Maritime Work Meeting, in which he highlighted the need to “research the related problems of how to organically link up reform within the coastal province CMS forces with integration of central-level maritime law enforcement forces” (China Ocean News, January 17).

Second, patrolling disputed waters or tracking foreign surveillance ships in China’s EEZs is not mere law enforcement—the units that conduct these missions are in fact implementing foreign policy. The devolution of power described above, therefore, also implies a devolution of foreign policy prerogatives from the central government to the provinces. To what extent are China’s coastal provinces equipped to perform this important function? With the best mariners seeking employment within central-level units, the provinces probably do not attract and keep the best talent. This problem is especially acute since China’s MRP law enforcement has an unsatisfactory baseline level of professionalism (China Ocean News, July 10). It is unclear how this might impact front line MRP operations. On the one hand, poor training could lead to lapses of restraint, increasing uncertainty and the risks that provincial-levels ships might drag Beijing into an unplanned diplomatic or even military standoff with another claimant. However, inadequate experience and preparation could just as easily increase Chinese crews’ susceptibility to fear and intimidation, and weaken Beijing’s push to enforce its claims. At the very least, it will add a new element of unpredictability to encounters at sea that Beijing may or may not have intended.

Finally, the new provincial-level cutters reaching the fleets probably represent the leading edge of what is likely a massive effort to build the world’s largest oceangoing MLE fleet. What currently looks like an imbalance in favor of provincial-level MRP is probably temporary, a quiet period during which Chinese engineers design and Chinese shipwrights build a new generation of central-level ships. In 2012, the SOA put into motion a plan to build many new 3,000 tonne and 4,000 tonne cutters, the fruits of which began reaching the central government MLE fleets in early 2014. News of new large-displacement orders in 2013 and 2014—including at least one super-large, 10,000 tonne displacement vessel—suggest that there are many, many more ships to be built (Renminwang, January 17, 2013; CSIC, January 14).

Notes

1. These included the China Marine Surveillance, the Maritime Police of the Border Control Department, the Fisheries Law Enforcement and the Maritime Anti-Smuggling Police of the General Administration of Customs.
2. Zhang Hongsheng, “Zongjie Jingyan, Dadan Kaituo,” Haiyang Fazhan Yu Guanli, January 2003, p. 29.
3. China’s Ocean Development Report (2013), Ocean Press, Beijing, 2013, p. 533.
4. Chen Yide, Ma Weijun and Yang Changjian, “Xin xingshi xia zuohao huyu weiquan weiwen gongzuo de sikao yu jianyi,” Zhongguo Shuichan, March 2012, p. 14.