China uses disguised fishing fleets in its efforts to gain control of the Indo-Pacific and challenge U.S. dominance in the region, according to veteran intelligence officer and author Grant Newsham.
The fleets, with their swarming tactics, double as a “maritime militia.”
The tactic, he said, helps the communist regime to establish a long-term presence in various places and drive its opponents out.
“If you’re a fisherman, there’s no way you’re going to go in and challenge a big boat with a strong hull, a double hull, and guys with weapons on it, that is willing to ram and sink you and shoot you if necessary,” he said.
An Aspect of Lawfare
If called out on the unorthodox strategy, China can argue that the aggressive vessels are just fishing boats, not naval vessels, making it difficult to come up with an effective or common-sense response, he noted.“If the other guy knows that he can break the rules and elbow in on you and hurt you, and you’re not going to do anything, because it’s against the law, he’s going to take advantage of that. It’s almost an aspect of so-called lawfare, where the Chinese use international law to their advantage. Partly, it helps if they don’t obey it, and we do. You can see the advantage that it gives to the Chinese compared to us and others,” Newsham said.
“In August 2016, some 230 Chinese fishing vessels swarmed the Senkaku Islands alongside Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) vessels. Eight fishing boats and CCG vessels repeatedly entered Japan’s territorial sea around the islands, while another 15 vessels repeatedly entered Japan’s contiguous zone,” the report said.
“The Chinese have done this now and then, and the purpose is to tell the Japanese, ‘Look, when the time comes we’re going to, they say, ‘assert administrative control,’ which is the legal term for asserting dominance of your territory. The Japanese are very worried about this,” Newsham noted.
Newsham believes this approach is more than just annoying. Beijing could use it to do direct harm to America.
Economic Warfare
As the author of the upcoming “When China Attacks” and with decades of experience in Asia, including as a U.S. Marine and a diplomat, Newsham said that China has a very different concept of war and of bringing its enemy under control.“To the Chinese, the shooting is the last thing, if it’s even necessary. Ideally, you’ve weakened your enemy and enemies to the point that they can’t respond effectively, and /or can’t respond at all. You do this with methods that don’t involve shooting people, although they are willing to do that, or they have other people do the shooting for them,” he said.
This doctrine of warfare is multifaceted, Newsham said, and can include economic warfare, biological war, chemical war, cyberwarfare, and proxy warfare.
In terms of economic warfare, he said, “The idea is to drive your opponents or your competitors out of business, to get their technology, suck the know-how out of them, rig the system in China so that you can build up Chinese companies.”
He pointed to China’s participation in the World Trade Organization in 2000, after the regime’s most favored nation/normal trade relations status was made permanent by the Clinton administration in the same year.
“Despite not meeting any of the requirements that every other country would need, things went wild and American businesses started flocking to China. China turned into this manufacturing juggernaut,” he said.
“It’s weakened us and it’s strengthened China, as the Chinese economy has grown,” Newsham said.