What’s Next for U.S.-China Military Relations?

The U.S. Navy ship USS Chief transits the South China Sea with the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis in March 2019. (U.S. Navy photo by Jordan Crouch) Thursday's high-level meeting between American and Chinese diplomats in Alaska confirmed that for the foreseeable future, “competition” will be the defining paradigm in U.S.-China relations. But the meeting also highlighted that the two sides are seeking to identify areas where cooperation can proceed alongside competition. One area that Washington and Beijing might look to is updating bilateral risk reduction and crisis management mechanisms. It’s a particularly ripe sphere for modest, practical steps the two governments can pursue to promote safety and prevent miscalculation in waters where their forces are increasingly operating in proximity. Closing the loopholes that currently leave some of the most important players out of existing safety protocols would be a useful first step.   Maritime Crisis Management and China’s “White Hulls” and “Blue Hulls”  Amid an increase in the frequency and intensity of Chinese and American military operations in maritime East Asia, an array of commentators have argued that there is an urgent need for the United States and China to work together to improve bilateral crisis avoidance and communication mechanisms . Nowhere is this need more evident than in the contested waters of the South China Sea and East China Sea. The recent history of U.S.-China military dialogues offers little cause for optimism about the potential for a near-term breakthrough.  Nonetheless, the Biden administration has an early opportunity to test the sincerity of China’s professed desire to prevent and manage the risks of conflict. As an initial good-faith step, Washington and Beijing should work to supplement existing maritime safety protocols to include non-naval vessels such as coast guards and maritime militias.   Recent legal developments related to the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) have brought this issue to a head. On Jan. 21, Beijing passed a law that authorizes the Chinese Coast Guard to use “all necessary measures” to prevent foreign organizations and individuals from violating, or posing an “imminent danger” of violating, China’s “sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdictional rights.” This is the first time China has spelled out in law the conditions under which its coast guard can fire weapons on foreign vessels. The new law permits the coast guard to use force under prescribed circumstances to defend China’s “jurisdictional waters” (管辖海域)—a deliberately ambiguous term that likely encompasses China’s ill-defined claims over nearly 80 percent of the waters in the South China Sea.  The new law also specifically authorizes the CCG to remove structures built by other countries on land features (natural or manmade) claimed by China. The law empowers the CCG to board and inspect foreign vessels in waters claimed by China and to create temporary exclusion zones in a broad range of circumstances to prevent ships and personnel from entering these areas. As Shigeki Sakamoto has written , the Coast Guard Law clarifies that “the CCG is an organization with the dual functions of a navy conducting defense operations in waters under its jurisdiction (military activities) and a maritime law enforcement agency (law enforcement activities).”  The Coast Guard Law also implicitly concedes what American officials have long argued : Maritime accidents and encounters involving the threat or use of force are at least as likely to arise from the operation of China’s coast guard as from its naval vessels. And it’s not just the Coast Guard and the Navy. China’s People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) raises similar concerns given its function as an armed reserve force that assists the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the CCG in enforcing China’s sovereignty claims. As China doubles down on these enforcement activities, all signs point to a growing role for so-called “white hull” coast guards and “blue hull” maritime militias in addition to “gray hull” naval vessels.   The CCG has expanded rapidly since 2010 to become the largest coast guard in the world. Its modernization has improved China’s ability to enforce its maritime claims. The CCG conducts regular presence operations in the vicinity of disputed features near the Senkaku Islands and deploys rapidly in response to perceived infringements on Chinese maritime claims, such as Vietnamese and Malaysian hydrocarbon drilling operations . In July 2018, the CCG came under the control of the paramilitary People’s Armed Police , which answers to China’s Central Military Commission. According to the U.S. Department of Defense , the CCG is “responsible for a wide range of missions under the umbrella of maritime rights protection, including enforcement of the PRC’s sovereignty claims, surveillance, protection of fisheries’ resources, anti-smuggling, and general law enforcement.”  There is nothing inherently improper about a coast guard exercising law enforcement powers that may include the use of force. But the CCG is frequently and intensively deployed in disputed waters, encroaching on what other nations see as their sovereignty. The result is often confrontation. Analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies indicates that “of the 70 major incidents identified in the South China Sea from 2010 onward, at least one Chinese maritime law enforcement vessel was involved in 73 percent of incidents.”  It is thus unsurprising that the enactment of the PRC Coast Guard Law set off alarm bells among China’s neighbors. The Philippines’s foreign secretary tweeted that the law “is a verbal threat of war to any country that defies the law,” and that leaving the law “unchallenged” would be tantamount to “submission.” The Philippines’s top military commander announced he was ordering the deployment of additional assets to the South China Sea to protect Filipino fishermen in response to the law’s enactment. Vietnam, which has been fortifying its bases in the South China Sea and is considering filing an international arbitration against China, pointedly vowed to “resolutely and persistently take measures in accordance with international law to defend [its] legal, legitimate rights” in the Spratly and Paracel islands. Taiwan’s envoy to the United States called for "high alert" over Beijing's maritime coercion in the wake of the Coast Guard Law. And some countries have argued that the law has already yielded more aggressive CCG maneuvering. On Feb. 16, two CCG vessels reportedly entered disputed waters near the Senkaku Islands, prompting Japan to lodge a protest over repeated incursions following enactment of the PRC Coast Guard Law. The United States has joined this growing chorus of concern. In a Feb. 19 press briefing , U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price stated that “the United States joins the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, and other countries in expressing concern with China’s recently enacted Coast Guard Law, which may escalate ongoing territorial and maritime disputes.” He specifically highlighted provisions that link the use of force to enforcement of China’s territorial and maritime claims, noting that the wording of the law “strongly implies” that it “could be used to intimidate the PRC’s maritime neighbors.”  These concerns have been accompanied by actions. In just its first month, the Biden administration oversaw freedom-of-navigation operations in the Spratly and Paracel islands, a Taiwan Strait transit, and dual-carrier strike group exercises in the South China Sea. Increasingly, such exercises and operations are being conducted with partner forces, including members of the “Quad” (Australia, India, Japan and the United States) and European allies such as France and Germany .  Time to Expand Risk Reduction Mechanisms In a context of growing risks to maritime security and stability, can the United States and China cooperate to lower the chances that an accident at sea spirals out of control?  Recent history provides evidence both for and against this proposition. In 2014, the United States and China committed to the multilateral Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) , a non-binding protocol that sets forth safety procedures, communications methods and maneuvering instructions for naval ships and aircraft during unplanned encounters. CUES supplements the “Collision Regulations” (COLREGS) contained in the 1972 Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea , a binding treaty to which both China and the United States are parties. The two countries
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