Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi recently held talks with the visiting Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, during which he expressed grave concerns over China’s Coast Guard Law again, reported Kyodo News.
Since the Chinese Coast Guard Law came into effect on February 1, the response from the US and Japan has been not only intense but also unusual. Japan has expressed its “grave concerns” over the law for nearly ten times on bilateral or multilateral occasions. But all the caw and clamor cannot hide the two countries’ real intention of deliberately misleading the public opinions and international community.
Washington and Tokyo’s criticisms of China’s Coast Guard Law focus on the unclear demarcation of sea areas within the jurisdiction, permission for the coast guard to use weapons and to take enforcement measures against foreign ships, and the “quasi-military nature” of the coast guard. But these criticisms are nothing but overreaction or even double standards both from the perspective of the international law, the similar laws in Japan and US, and the maritime enforcement practices.
The demarcation of mandated sea areas has nothing to do with the purpose of the Coast Guard Law. Similar laws in Japan and many other countries don’t define the specific law enforcement scopes either, and the coast guard laws of Vietnam and the Philippines only generalize the concept as mandated sea areas. The US Coast Guard’s scope of enforcement powers at sea is even more general, including the high seas or the sea areas and airspace above where the US has a jurisdiction according to its law. The Chinese Supreme People’s Court issued a piece of judicial interpretation in August 2016 which specified the scope of sea areas under Chinese jurisdiction, which the Japanese Ministry of Defense has recently mentioned on its official website, indicating it knows the actual situation very well.
It is an international practice to use weapons during maritime law enforcement when deemed necessary. According to the Law Concerning the Execution of Duties of Police Officials, the Japan Coast Guard (JCG) can use arms like regular police officers. The Japanese Coast Guard Law revised in 2001 also stipulates that when a ship refuses to stop and accept inspection and tries to resist and escape, the Coast Guard officers shall exercise conditional use of weapons if they don’t think there are other means to stop the ship from continuing its operation.
Some foreign media have intentionally misinterpreted or distorted China’s Coast Guard Law by claiming that it authorizes law enforcers to use weapons against foreign military ships and government ships without warning. Article 47 and Article 48 of the law prescribe the situations where arms can be used, such as illegal transport of weapons and ammunition, attacking law enforcement ships or craft, among others. Article 49 also provides that direct use of arms is limited to the situation when “there is no time for warning or warning may lead to more serious consequences”, which is reasonable from a practical point of view and consists with the Regulations on Use of Police Implements and Arms by the People’s Police.
Regarding enforcement measures, Article 30 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states, “If any warship does not comply with the laws and regulations of the coastal State …the coastal State may require it to leave the territorial sea immediately.” Article 18 of Japan’s Coast Guard Law states, when the Coast Guard officers decide that crimes may be in progress on the sea, structures are being damaged, or there are other emergency states, they can order the ship to stop, change course, or sail to a designated location. The American Coast Guard Law simply authorizes armed law enforcement against any ship.
It is also a common international practice to incorporate maritime law enforcement into the military system and entrust it to carry out military missions in wartime. In countries like the UK, France, and Italy, it is the military that’s responsible for law enforcement on the sea. The US Coast Guard is called the fifth service after the army, navy, air force, and marine corps, which is usually under the lead of the Department of Homeland Security but operates as part of the navy in wartime, and its predecessor, the Revenue Cutter Service, participated in WWI and WWII directly. Although Japanese law stipulates that the Japan Coast Guard is part of the police force, it also allows the agency to be controlled by the defense minister during defensive and security operations based on the prime minister’s authorization.
Besides, America and Japan’s maritime law enforcement practices have been widely questioned. In January 1990, the US Coast Guard shot at a Panamanian merchant ship leased by Cuba for one hour and 45 minutes in Mexico’s exclusive economic zone, on the grounds of possible drug dealing and refusal to accept America’s inspection. However, no drug was found onboard the ship when it entered the Mexican port for inspection. The shooting by US Coast Guard triggered a heated debate at the UN Security Council and was suspected of violating international law.
Japan claims to “use weapons with caution and restraint”, and one of the necessary conditions set in its Coast Guard Law where weapons can be used against foreign ships is that the ship sails in Japanese territorial sea or inland waters beyond the innocent passage, except for military vessels and government ships for non-commercial purposes. However, the law enforcement practices of the Japan Coast Guard are also fraught with problems and doubts. On December 22, 2001, the agency caused a “suspicious ship” to sink with the use of arms in the Chinese exclusive economic zone, which caused the death of at least 15 crew members onboard. It was the gravest vicious event of the use of a weapon in the East China Sea for several decades and was extremely rare even in the global history of maritime law enforcement.
All these show that Washington and Tokyo’s bashing of China’s Coast Guard Law finds no basis in international law and contradicts their own laws and enforcement practices. They accuse the implementation of the Chinese law of aggravating tension in the East China Sea. Still, the fact is that since 2020, Japan, regardless of China’s warnings, has constantly indulged its right-wingers in operating in waters around China’s Diaoyu Dao on the pretext of fishing, which is the major cause of regional tension.
(The authors, Hu Jiping and Xu Yongzhi, are respectively Vice President of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations and an associate researcher at its Institute of Northeast Asian Studies.)
Editor's note: This article is originally published on huanqiu.com, and is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
