China has passed a controversial law that gives the Coast Guard more freedom to shoot at foreign vessels, a move that could fuel the risk of military computing in the West Pacific.
The law is aimed at “protecting national sovereignty, security and maritime rights,” the official Xinhua News Agency said in a report early Saturday. The law comes into force on 1 February.
According to the text released by Xinhua, the Chinese Coast Guard would be allowed to use “all necessary means”, including the use of weapons, to stop or prevent threats from foreign vessels. Coast Guard personnel will be allowed to board and inspect foreign ships operating in China’s ‘jurisdictional waters’, a term that refers to areas claimed by other countries.
The move could increase the risk of miscalculation in the vast areas of disputed waters stretching off China’s coast. Chinese coastguard ships often come into close contact with foreign vessels, sometimes relinquishing tense because they allege Beijing’s allegations on much of the South and East China seas.
Hua Chunying, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said in a regular briefing in Beijing on Friday that the move was a “normal legislative activity of the NPC” and that China would “remain committed to peace and stability in the to maintain sea ‘.
Claims on the resource-rich waters of the South China Sea have China at odds with neighboring Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. In the East China Sea, Chinese and Japanese government vessels regularly pull each other on patrols near uninhabited islands claimed by both sides.
Earlier this week, Japanese diplomats during a conference with Chinese counterparts expressed strong opposition to repeated invasions of the country’s vessels near the controversial Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyus in China. Chinese delegates urged the two parties to work to make the area a “sea of peace, cooperation and friendship,” Beijing’s Foreign Ministry said.
The law is China’s latest move to empower its coastguard, created in 2013 by merging several maritime agencies and incorporated into the People’s Armed Police in 2018. The navy recently increased its presence in controversial waters, including an uprising with Vietnam at Vanguard Bank in the South China Sea in 2019.
The move could also encourage other countries to bolster their military presence in the waters, including then-US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien last year said the U.S. Coast Guard wanted to expand its presence in the Pacific.
– With the help of John Liu, Jing Li and Colum Murphy