Related posts:

• China, Still Pushing Buttons
• Denial of Innocent Passage, Could This Be a Trend?
• Japanese Coast Guard at Center of Sino-Japanese Dispute
• China’s Coast Guards
• Chinese Claim the Entire South China Sea as Sovereign Territory
• Ramblings on Maritime Domain Awareness
• More on China’s Coast Guard

There are more signs that tension between China and Japan is ratcheting up, and that their Coast Guards are the instruments of choice. The Chinese are reinforcing their Coast Guard in the Disputed area. The Chinese have disputes with a number of their neighbors, but I think they have several reasons for choosing to confront the Japanese first.

1. Of all their claims to territory in dispute, claims to the islands variously know as the Senkaku, Diaoyu, Diaoyutai, or Pinnacle Islands, appear the most supportable.
2. Both the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China see the islands as part of Taiwan (which the PRC, of course, also sees as part of China). This dispute puts the people of both mainland China and Taiwan on the same side against Japan. That may be seen in Beijing as politically useful.
3. Because of their history, the Chinese people are ready to think the worst of the Japanese, so it is not hard to generate anti-Japanese feelings. Generating the same level of hostility against the Vietnamese or the people of the Philippines would be difficult.
4. The Chinese have significant leverage on the Japanese economy, in that they have a virtually monopoly on rare earth minerals required for manufacture of many high tech devices. Playing this card has prompted a call to diversify sources for the minerals, but alternate sources are still years away.
5. The Chinese may believe that, because the Japanese have the strongest military among the countries who have conflicting claims with China, if China can get the Japanese to roll over–the other countries may assume they cannot resist and will also cave.

Sidbar, Handicapping the contenders: If it came to blows between the two Coast Guards, I would put my money on the Japanese, but winning that particular battle may not be in the plan. Pointedly the Chinese are sending their “fastest marine law enforcement vessel.” This ship, “China Sea monitoring 75,” is slightly smaller than a 270 and only about one knot faster. The balance is changing rapidly, but the Japanese Coast Guard is still far larger and better equipped than their Chinese counterpart. In fact the Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) has more patrol vessels over 1,000 tons than the US Coast Guard, including eleven that are as large or larger than the National Security Cutter (go here and click on “pamphlet” for a pdf which includes information about the missions, organization, and assets of the Japanese Coast Guard)

In all probability, units of the nine ship Hateruma class (292 ft long, 1,300 ton, 30 knots, armed with the Mk44 Bushmaster II 30mm autocannon with laser-optical fire-control system), specifically intended to police of Senkaku Islands, will be among several vessels that will respond to any Chinese challenge.

The requirements that shape the latest vessels of the Japan Coast Guard seem to have been influenced by their experience in the “Battle of Amami-Oshima.” To call it a battle might be an exaggeration. It was a running gun-fight between an armed North Korean trawler and 20 vessels of the Japanese Coast Guard in 2001. In spite of intense machine gun fire from both sides, the North Korean vessel appears to have been scuttled, rather than sunk by fire from the Japanese vessels, the trawler’s crew choosing death rather than surrender. I find it hard to understand, in view of our experience in Vietnam, but the Japanese felt their 20mm Gatling guns were out-ranged by 9K38 Igla MANPADS and B-10 and recoilless rifle fire from the trawler. As a result they have built ships specifically intended to counter North Korean spy ships that have stabilized heavy machine guns from 20 mm M61 Gatling guns to Bofors 40mm/70s with associated fire control systems and for “High-speed, high-functionality” large patrol ships such as the three ships of the Hida class, 1,800 tons and three ships of the Aso class, 770 tons, hulls that are “bullet proof” (presumably against machine-guns up to 14.5mm–protection against anything larger would require great weight of armor).

It’s interesting to compare the JCG choices for ships of the Hateruma class and Hida class with the projected OPC. The JCG ships are much faster at 30+ knots. They have no hanger, but they can handle very large helicopters. USCG ships tend to be small naval combatants, while JCG ships appear to be built more along the lines of merchant ships. Armoring hulls is apparently not something the USCG has considered. USCG ships tend to be armed to fight at relatively longer ranges (gun ranges to 9 miles) against adversaries with sophisticated weapons including cruise missiles, while the JCG ships seem to be  optimized more for combat at relatively close, but not extremely close range (beyond 2000, but certainly less than 10,000 yards), ranges where crew served weapons and small arms are essentially useless, but their heavier weapons under electro-optic fire control can still dominate.

Sidebar, The Aftermath: Against the JCG the Chinese Coast Guard would probably loose a fight, but that might be best outcome from the Chinese point of view. If this is more about national unity and justifying sacrifice for additional weapons, nothing promotes national resolve like seeing stretchers come off a ship with wounded men to be greeted by their wives and girlfriends,  followed by body bags met by grieving widows and children. In any case, the Japanese will be portrayed as bullies–easy for the Chinese people to believe–and a strong military reaction justified. Both sides will have their cameras ready, because any encounter will be played out thousands of times on YouTube by battling videos, as we saw in the Gaza flotilla incident.

(Thanks to DER for bringing this to my attention.)