Coast Guard With Muscles

The China Coast Guard has ‘bulked up’ the size, numbers and firepower of its ships, blurring the traditional role usually associated with such organisations.

- JR Ng

The China Coast Guard (Zhongguó Haiji­ng, or CCG) is believed to be the world’s largest coast guard and serves as a coordinating agency for law enforcement as well as maritime search and rescue (SAR) in the territorial waters of the People's Republic of China.

The CCG was originally the maritime security arm of the Public Security Border Troops, a paramilitary organization under the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). However, in March 2013 the central government in passed the State Council Institutional Reform and Functional Transformation Plan, which mandated the restructuring of the then-state Oceanic Administration (SOA) – a civilian agency under the State Council – and the incorporation of all maritime law enforcement units into the CCG under SOA command from July 2013.

This arrangement turned out to be relatively short-lived. Oversight of the CCG under a civilian administration resulted in co-ordination challenges with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in maritime security operations, prompting the government to introduce another round of reshuffling. In March 2018 the SOA was dissolved and its responsibilities subsumed into the newly formed Ministry of Natural Resources, while the CCG was transferred from civilian control to the People’s Armed Police (PAP) from July 2018, ultimately returning it under the umbrella of the Central Military Commission (CMC).

Although there appear to be no seismic changes in the assigned missions from when the CCG was under the civilian control of the State Council and the SOA, reports in state-owned media including the China Daily and Global Times newspapers have suggested that the enforcement powers of the CCG would have been expanded under new legislation, enabling the service to “play a bigger role in emergencies and crises, including war”.