The Chinese navy may be big, but it has shown itself truly incompetent

Telegraph

a day ago

In a spectacular own-goal that exposes the perils of aggressive posturing, two Chinese vessels – a People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) destroyer and a China Coast Guard (CCG) cutter – smashed into each other last week while chasing a Philippine Coast Guard vessel in the disputed South China Sea. The incident, near Scarborough Shoal, almost certainly resulted in sailors on the Chinese cutter being killed.
Bullying like this is commonplace there but when it merges with such poor seamanship, grey-zone activity quickly moves to the daft-zone as comedy and tragedy merge to create a deadly maritime farce.
The clash unfolded during a Philippine mission to aid local fishermen at Scarborough Shoal, a submerged reef about 140 miles west of Luzon, firmly within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The BRP Suluan, a 270-ton Philippine patrol vessel, was escorting supply boats when the CCG cutter 3104 – a repurposed Type 056 corvette – gave chase at high speed, blasting water cannons and attempting hazardous blocking manoeuvres as they have done so many times before.
Enter the PLAN's Type 052D destroyer stage left, literally. She is a 7,500-ton behemoth armed to the teeth with guns and missiles, who had conducted her own close passes in the run up to the collision. And by close passes, I mean inside 10 yards, at which range any margin for error has long since gone.
Video was taken from the Suluan over her stern and sees the Chinese cutter weaving as it approaches her stern at high speed. The next thing we see is the bow of the warship looming impossibly close to the stern of the Suluan and the bow of the cutter. Turns out, it was impossible. The next time we see the cutter, it is stopped in the water with its bow folded in like paper.
Some thought both ships were attempting to try and sandwich the Suluan. I don't agree as that requires a level of coordination and understanding that was clearly absent. More likely is that both Chinese vessels, with the drama of it all, got target fixation which in turn caused them to lose situational awareness (SA) of the other vessel. How the coastguard vessel managed this is a puzzle given that the warship was right in front of them but they did – the Coastguard sailors in the bows who bravely put a fender out reacted faster than the team on the bridge.
It's also clear that the Suluan was handled well throughout, unruffled when the two Chinese ships got close on previous passes and consistently manoeuvring to be a difficult target. In these situations speed is everything. The Suluan was a couple of knots slower than the coastguard cutter and as much as seven slower than the warship. Getting away fully was never an option.
Although no deaths have been confirmed it is unlikely that any of the Chinese coastguard sailors who were on the fo'c'sle of their cutter during the collision escaped. Subsequent videos have made much of a red mist seen coming from the bows of the warship as the cutter disappeared from the camera's view. It makes no difference at all to the sailors or their families but this was unlikely to be blood. The bows of ships contain a large anchor cable locker full of rust and dust, all of which would have been violently ejected as the PLAN ship crumpled it like foil.
The warship's post-collision behaviour was even more surprising. Under the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) vessels must render assistance after a collision. Yet the destroyer barely slowed either for this (breach of law) or to check their own watertight integrity (a breach of common sense). We can see two small holes visible in the port bow, but what if it was holed below the waterline?
Basic damage control says you slow to check and if you're slick, that only takes a minute. They didn't though. I'm not sure if this was panic and lack of experience by the captain or indicative of a 'press on regardless' wartime mentality. I have noted before that the downside of building so many new warships a year is that you can't generate experience fast enough – some PLAN captains have spent less than eight years at sea – so it could be inexperience rather than bad attitude. I would like to know though as the difference is significant.
Manoeuvring multiple warships in close proximity like this is doable. I've done it as a frigate captain working alongside a US destroyer at very close quarters protecting minesweepers from onrushing fast attack craft. In that case, the US captain and I had spent an evening sometime prior mapping it out.
The Cod Wars was probably the last time the Royal Navy was asked to be this aggressive ship-on-ship and it didn't work well then either. Warships now are built for speed and manoeuvrability and are not designed to hit other ships. If you can avoid it, you do. Unless, like the other proponents of daft-zone manoeuvring, Russia and Iran, you don't care.
To finish off the incident, in a demonstration of ice-cold professionalism, the Suluan slows before jumping on the radio to offer assistance to the now bowless cutter. Good work.
Which brings me to the broader point of what Beijing thinks this behaviour will achieve. I understand that they are trying to normalise their illegal claims there but the risk vs reward in this sort of case makes it an odd way to do it. It reminds me of when the Iranian small boats would swarm you as you transited the Strait of Hormuz. It doesn't really intimidate or stop you going, it just makes you wonder why they are doing it and when they do it badly, it diminishes your respect for them as operators.
None of this is new. Beijing's forces have caused hundreds of incidents in the South China Sea alone in the past year, from ramming resupply missions at Second Thomas Shoal to water-cannoning fishermen. Hitting one of their own is new, but the mindset is not.
Up until now most of the aggressive behaviour has happened in the South China Sea as China continues to ignore the Hague ruling against its 'Nine Dash Line' claim and treat most of the Sea like it's theirs. But just now there are also five Chinese ice breakers off the coast of Alaska, described as 'research vessels' and manoeuvring just outside the Alaskan EEZ. This is designed to test legal systems and stretch resources: but how long before things become dangerous there, or off the coast of the UK?
Likewise, it's inevitable that China's rapidly developing nuclear submarine threat will start poking around in US and European underwater infrastructure in the way Russia has been for decades, if it's not happening already.
Personally, I don't have any hope that this latest mishap will alter China's strategic behaviour. It's embarrassing, and the Chinese captains will pay the price for that, but it won't make them stop. At the tactical level I would imagine the PLAN and other branches of their maritime militia will now be learning how to better coordinate at sea. Meanwhile everyone who is on the receiving end of this maritime buffoonery knows that they are dealing with a dangerous mix of recklessness and inexperience.
It's comedic that the Chinese hit one of their own and tragic that it resulted in deaths – I think those two can coexist. My initial thought when I saw the video was 'play stupid games, win stupid prizes' and despite the fatalities revealed since, I think that's about right. So, as ever, it's about alliances, treaties, cooperation and a collective sense that we will not tolerate this behaviour because when we do, it becomes the next normal. Then it escalates again until a conflict-triggering accident becomes inevitable. We are approaching this now.