Opinion | China’s use of maritime militia demonstrates its control over South China Sea

In the South China Sea, some 200 Chinese civilian vessels were moored off a sandbank for much of March. Much as the ship stuck in the Suez Canal showed the precarity of global trade, with a choke point that carries some 12 per cent of the world’s trade closed for six days, so the South China Sea development showed how geopolitics could threaten freedom of navigation and trade.

The presence of the Chinese vessels near a reef some 175 nautical miles off the Philippine coastline have led to recriminations from Manila and bolstered naval and aerial patrols. The events are a reminder that the South China Sea is a hotly contested and increasingly militarised waterway that carries some 30 per cent of global shipping every year.

The presence of so many Chinese vessels has led to charges that Beijing is using its “maritime militia” to enforce its claims to the sea.

As scholars such as Andrew Erickson have showed, the militia are publicly funded, sometimes armed civilians, often in fishing vessels that can use their numerical advantage and rights as fishing vessels to “occupy” an area of sea and prevent access to or drive away other fishermen. Although civilian, the maritime militia is controlled and organised by the state.