Chinese Gun Boats and No Diplomacy - 1/2

Part 1/2: Chinese Insertion Boats, High-Speed and Unique, for Coast Guard and Special Operations, including Swarming Missions

Wendell Minnick

Nov 19, 2022

∙ Paid

#34

19 November 2022

Chinese Gun Boats With No Diplomacy

Chinese Insertion Boats, High-Speed and Unique, for Coast Guard and Special Operations, including Swarming Missions

By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德

TAIPEI - Gunboat Diplomacy…how I miss it. And look how China has learned so much about it…

China is practicing a sort of redux of the Yangtze River Patrol Force (see the 1966 movie The Sand Pebbles starring Steve McQueen and ironically filmed in Taiwan on the Keelung River) to enforce a diverse mission set from brown water (riverine) to green and even blue water roles.

Below are unique brochures that highlight what types of vessels are used to harass the U.S. Navy treading through the South China Sea, what will be used to insert Chinese special operation teams along the Taiwan coast during a war, and why the variety of such vessels makes for tough countermeasures for Japan guarding the Senkaku Islets and the Ryukyu Islands from China.

Some of the boats are no bigger than the PBR (Patrol Boat Riverine) in the movie Apocalypse Now, while others are roughly the same size, 150-foot, as the gun boat in The Sand Pebbles.

With Chinese military bases and port facilities being built in Africa, perhaps China’s military leadership should take Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness truly to heart: “It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.”

NOTE TO RESEARCHERS: This post is keyworded to allow for easier research. These documents are rare and difficult to catalog (just key Find in your web browser). Researchers are allowed to copy photographs for their own publications, so long as China In Arms receives accreditation via bibliography/footnote/endnote, beers, etc.

Documents are provided chronologically: 2018 Defense Services Asia (DSA) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 2016 China Airshow (Zhuhai); 2015 International Maritime Defense Exhibition (IMDEX) in Singapore; and 2014 DSA.

Those interested how China uses its vast fleet of fishing boats (Little Blue Men) to harass foreign navies and regional fishing vessels, see research conducted by Andrew Erickson at the U.S. Naval War College (NWC). He covers the largely ignored maritime government vessels used to enforce everything from fishery rights, territorial rights, harassment, cabbage tactics (swarming).

I also recommend Leimbach’s Proceedings article AND the US Naval Institute’s series on Chinese Maritime COIN. Those interested in Chinese Unmanned Sea Vessels, consult this page.

Those interested in intelligence collection along the Ryukyu Chain, I recommend a paper written by the legendary Richard Tanter and, the even more epic, the late, Desmond Ball, The Tools of Owatatsumi: Japan’s Ocean Surveillance and Coastal Defence Capabilities.

Other books reflecting my own research on Chinese naval issues: Chinese Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles (2019); Chinese Submarines and Underwater Warfare Systems (2019); and Chinese Seaplanes, Amphibious Aircraft and Aerostats/Airships (2016).