US deploys coast guard away from home to fight China

China used the coordinated action of its fishing fleets, coast guard and navy to establish its presence in the South China Sea. Increasingly, it is also present in the South and Central Pacific. Chinese fishing fleets have sprung up strongly around island nations like the Republic of Kiribati and Tuvalu, which have one of the richest tuna fisheries in the world, and the Chinese navy has also established itself in the area, including with a scale of warships. in Sydney in 2019 and visits by a Navy hospital ship to Fiji in 2018.

The US Coast Guard is strengthening in the region in response. In the past few months, it has based two of its new, more advanced cutters in the North American territory of Guam, nearly 6,500 kilometers closer to Shanghai than to San Francisco. One more should arrive in the coming months. For the first time, the Coast Guard has an attaché at the United States Embassy in Canberra, Australia, and another attaché will move to Singapore next year.

The Coast Guard has steadily increased its activity in the Western Pacific and near the coast of China. She deployed cutters in the Western Pacific for more than 10 months in 2019 to work with the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet. One, the USCGC Bertholf, crossed the Taiwan Strait in a demonstration of defiance of China, the first US Coast Guard ship to make the voyage highly politicized.

“All of that changed with the National Defense Strategy,” Lyle Morris, senior policy analyst at Rand Corp., referring to a 2018 Pentagon document. “The biggest transition has been the Coast Guard’s more open signaling about its role in the great competition of powers with China. ”

Although the United States Coast Guard is under the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security, its work with the Pentagon is growing. U.S. government data shows that Coast Guard ships spent 326 days supporting the Department of Defense in 2019, compared to an average of just 50 to 100 days in the previous five years. All 2019 deployments were in the Indo-Pacific. The Coast Guard’s mission traditionally focuses on protecting the United States’ maritime borders, but sometimes plays a role in supporting the Navy.

The Department of Defense also signaled the need to focus more on the region. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s first overseas trip, which began this week, takes him to the Indo-Pacific.

The United States and allies with a strong naval presence in the Pacific, such as Australia and France, are concerned that China, having established a solid dominance in the South China Sea, is moving further to find less depleted fishing areas and expand its strategy position. Coast Guard positions are aimed at allowing the US to tackle these probes with less risk of a military incident than if US Navy ships were involved.

“Sending the Coast Guard to the region to train our partners makes perfect sense,” said Representative Seth Moulton (D., Massachusetts), a member of the House’s Armed Services Committee. “They can do all of this without the risk of complications that the Navy would represent in doing the same job.”

Much of the work is the inspection activity at the spearhead of China’s rigs – its fishing fleet. In the Republic of Palau, the Chinese fishing boat and six smaller vessels were detained on charges of sea cucumber. The Coast Guard came to assist local authorities with boarding and document verification.

Palau, like the nations of the Pacific, Micronesia and Marshall Islands, is in a free association pact with the United States, which allows them to remain independent while obtaining some of the benefits offered to US territories.

While many of the small Pacific islands have an increasing ability to protect their own waters, the new Coast Guard ships have increased the U.S. ability to provide security and stability, said Captain Christopher Chase, commanding officer of the Coast Guard in the Guam region.

The Coast Guard is investing more than $ 19 billion in at least eight national security cutters, 25 offshore patrol cutters and 58 rapid response cutters. If everything goes as planned this year, at least eight of these ships will be positioned to face China. The Coast Guard is also investigating the parking of a ship in American Samoa.

The new national security cutters, the centerpiece of the fleet, are able to travel further and faster in the worst conditions. They are armed with a naval cannon system and heavy machine guns, and have decks on which helicopters can land.

The force will also work with nations in the Pacific and Southeast Asia on more mundane but relationship-building tasks, such as repairing ships, training crews and replacing navigation buoys.

China used its own coast guard, the largest in the world, to accompany its fishing fleet and harass ships engaged in oil exploration and other commercial activities in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.

In the summer of 2019, the USCGC Bertholf docked in Manila, Philippines, after exercises with local counterparts.

Commander Gary Gimotea was the captain of a 184-foot Philippine Coast Guard ship, participating in search and rescue training with the Americans some 70 nautical miles from the contested Scarborough Shoal. A Chinese ship accompanied them all day.

“They become more aggressive and challenge you as you approach Scarborough Shoal,” Commander. Gimotea said about the Chinese ships that they usually find on patrol. “It is very comforting to have the United States when we conduct these exercises.”

Vice Admiral Linda Fagan, commander of the US Coast Guard in the Pacific, said that the Indo-Pacific command and countries in the region would like to see a more regular presence of the Coast Guard in the South China Sea area, and that the force would look for return opportunities.

“Being a little smaller than the United States Navy and definitely a little more agile and flexible is viewed positively by our partners,” said Vice Admiral Fagan in an interview.

Write to Lucy Craymer at [email protected] and Ben Kesling at [email protected]