One of the novel features of Beijing’s recent all-domain pressure campaign against Taiwan has been the addition of coast guard forces to its coercive tool kit. In the past, when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) rattled its saber across the strait, it relied heavily on the various branches of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), especially its navy, air force, and rocket forces. However, in August 2022 it expanded its repertoire by dispatching a 6,600-ton coast guard cutter to patrol the strait, one of several operational responses to then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island.
Since then, Beijing has repeatedly deployed coast guard cutters to waters around Taiwan and several of its outer islands, with the clear intent of undermining Taipei’s sovereignty and threatening its security.
Many observers, including Taiwan’s government, have categorized this new pattern of maritime coercion as “gray zone” (灰帶) actions. The term suggests similarities with PRC behavior in the South China Sea, where the gray zone concept is frequently evoked. But if China is indeed employing a gray zone approach against Taiwan, it appears to be doing so largely without its most infamous gray zone actor — the maritime militia.
To date, there has been little, if any, reporting of militia activities around Taiwan. This does not mean that they are not operating around the strait, just that they are not being incorporated into Beijing’s pressure campaign.
In the South China Sea, the maritime militia is a key instrument of Beijing’s policy to expand its influence and control over disputed maritime space. Often disguised as civilian fishing vessels, militia forces serve a range of functions, from showing the flag in PRC-claimed waters to physically blocking foreign mariners from using the sea. Due to their ambiguous identity and lack of visible armaments, their actions are less escalatory than those taken by other components of China’s armed forces — at least so Chinese leaders believe. The maritime militia often works closely with the China Coast Guard, the PRC’s other main gray zone force, two confederates in coercion, each applying its respective strengths to impose China’s will on its neighbors.
If the maritime militia is so central to the PRC’s strategy in the South China Sea, how can we explain its apparent absence in waters around Taiwan? Why is Beijing relying entirely on coast guard forces in the cross-strait variant of its gray zone approach? Does it simply lack capable militia forces like those provided by the South China Sea provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan? Or can larger strategic and operational considerations explain the difference?
Fujian Province: a Militia Powerhouse
The simplest explanation for the apparent absence of militia forces in waters around Taiwan would be that China lacks capable units with firsthand experience in the Taiwan theater, and therefore has no choice but to rely on its coast guard to achieve its policy aims. However, a review of the available evidence quickly dispels this hypothesis.
For militia operations around Taiwan, the PRC would need to rely on mariners who routinely operate in these waters under their civilian guise. That means fishers from Fujian, the PRC province directly across the strait from Taiwan. Aside from having valuable experience in the theater, Fujian fishers look like they belong there, a necessary condition for operational concealment and ambiguity.
Fujian is home to a large fishing industry, which provides ample raw materials for maritime militia units. The responsibility for molding these fishing fleets into capable militia forces falls on the provincial military district, working through its municipal sub-districts (or garrisons) and their subordinate People’s Armed Forces Departments (PAFDs). These PLA entities coordinate their efforts with local government officials, who fund militia-building initiatives, and local fisheries bureaus, which regulate the fleet when not serving militia functions.
The importance of civil-military cooperation in militia work ensures that records about the presence and disposition of maritime militia units are readily found in open sources. Based on the available information, Fujian has organized some significant portion of its very large fishing fleet into militia organizations.
As an example, take just the city of Fuzhou, home to 1,100 medium and large fishing vessels of the type best-suited for militia operations. In 2013, the city and its PLA garrison (福州警备区) began taking steps to bolster its maritime militia forces. In that year, the garrison created “pilot” maritime militia reconnaissance units and investigated ways to strengthen relevant capabilities. Starting in 2014, Fuzhou prioritized the building of maritime militia forces, creating a “maritime force construction leading small group” with an office in the garrison headquarters. The emphasis on augmenting maritime militia continued through subsequent years. By 2017, the Fuzhou garrison had achieved “real-time command” of maritime militia units, allowing PAFDs to mobilize forces more easily for training and real-world operations.
While the garrison and its subordinate units developed the capabilities of local maritime militia forces, Fuzhou civilian authorities updated the regulations for using them, thereby ensuring their operational readiness. In 2014, for example, Fuzhou city government revised the regulations for mobilizing militia personnel and requisitioning civilian vessels for militia work. In 2018, it issued another document clarifying the standards for compensating civilian mariners whose boats, ships, and personnel are taken away from production to serve state and military requirements, as happens when militia forces are activated for duty. This improved the odds that militia personnel would answer the call for training or real world operations — a perennial challenge for the PAFDs charged with managing them.
Fuzhou’s Lianjiang county, located near Taiwan’s strategic Matsu island group, has made maritime militia development a particular priority. Its 13th Five Year Plan (2016–20) contains a section on promoting military-civil fusion, which calls for “prioritizing the construction of PLA reserves, maritime militia, and backbone militia forces.” Lianjiang is home to two “national center fishing harbors,” one each on the northern and southern coast of the Huangqi peninsula. These harbors are home to hundreds of fishing vessels, a significant (but unknown) portion of which belong to maritime militia units.
Lianjiang’s maritime militia enterprise resembles militia-building practices in the South China Sea provinces, further suggesting its high degree of sophistication. First, it uses large fishing companies as maritime militia fronts. For example, Shunfan Fisheries Company (顺帆渔业有限公司), located in Huangqi Town, on the southern coast of the Huangqi peninsula, operates dozens of militia boats. The company headquarters contains a number of exhibits celebrating its martial prowess. Second, Lianjiang civilian and military authorities have designated larger civilian vessels to serve as maritime militia command ships (海上民兵指挥船), indicating preparation for extended maritime operations.
Different Circumstances
With its hundreds of fishing vessels and robust militia organization, Lianjiang county alone would be able to provide Beijing with the forces needed to operate in sensitive areas around Taiwan — if it made strategic and operational sense for them to do so.
Assuming the forces are available, as they apparently are, why is China not using them?
The first, most obvious, explanation is that the two theaters are vastly different. The South China Sea is a large body of water, and Beijing claims jurisdiction over most of it (3.0 million sq km). Although the PRC operates the world’s largest coast guard, it cannot be everywhere at once. Militia forces can fill the presence gaps, showing the flag, collecting intelligence, and taking action, when and where needed. The most contested sections of the South China Sea are also very remote from mainland China. As a result, ships and boats must spend large portions of their deployments just getting to and from operating areas — again, increasing the size of the fleet required to meet the mission.
The Taiwan theater is both much smaller and much closer to China. Most gray zone operations occur near Taiwan’s outer islands and within the strait itself, with occasional demonstrations east of Taiwan. This places far less strain on China’s existing coast guard forces and obviates a key function of the maritime militia, i.e., serving as an auxiliary fleet for the coast guard.
The maritime militia’s other major attributes — ambiguous status and lack of armaments — may actually reduce its utility in the Taiwan theater, where Beijing is pursuing different policy aims. In the South China Sea, the maritime militia allows China to achieve local dominance without resorting to classical “gunboat diplomacy,” which would damage China’s relations with its neighbors and risk an armed conflict, possibly involving the United States.
The calculus is different with Taiwan, where the main goal is to intimidate Taiwanese leaders so they change their policies. The intrusive operations of Chinese maritime law enforcement forces, in the words of retired PLA Navy officer Cao Weidong (曹卫东), “put a squeeze on [Taiwan separatists’] sense of military security.” This is a strategic effect that flows from power and authority, which the Chinese coast guard possesses but the maritime militia does not.
Different Roles
That the maritime militia is not playing a major role in China’s pressure campaign against Taiwan does not mean it is totally absent from the battlespace. Indeed, evidence suggests that militia forces have been mobilized, like in the South China Sea, to operate in sensitive waters, just in a manner more appropriate to the strategic and operational circumstances.
Most notably, Fujian maritime militia units have been tasked with participating in coast guard exercises staged during periods of cross-strait tension, thereby helping to amplify the coercive signal sent to Taipei. One example occurred in May 2024, as part of Beijing’s response to President Lai Ching-te’s inauguration. In conjunction with the PLA Eastern Theater Command’s large-scale exercise (Joint Sword 2024A), the China Coast Guard sent a four-ship task force to patrol waters east of Taiwan. While there, the ships held a “comprehensive law enforcement drill” (综合执法演练) involving militia vessels.
The drill was clearly aimed at Taipei. It occurred within visual sight of the island, well inside its exclusive economic zone, and practiced “inspection and identification” (查证识别) and “warning and expulsion” (警告驱离), operations that the China Coast Guard had no business doing in these waters. The task force included three of the China Coast Guard’s best-armed cutters — hulls 2303, 2304, and 2305 — members of a ship class derived from the PLA Navy’s Type 054A frigate. While interviewed by PRC state media, a China Coast Guard officer, Captain Liu Jianfeng (刘剑锋), declared that his service would “continue to strengthen its patrols and law enforcement in China’s jurisdictional waters” and “resolutely defend national sovereignty and security” — language clearly intended to alarm its audience in Taipei.
As part of the drill, the China Coast Guard used a real vessel to simulate a law enforcement action. PRC media coverage showed a China Coast Guard cutter dispatching small craft to approach and board a large fishing boat, the Minlianyu 60388. Commercially available ship traffic data suggests that at least one other “Minlianyu” fishing vessel participated in the drill.
For such a sensitive mission, the China Coast Guard would not requisition just any civilian fishing vessels — though in theory it probably could. Rather, it would select boats crewed by personnel best prepared for the task at hand, which unquestionably means members of China’s maritime militia.
Minlianyu 60388 is registered in Fuzhou City’s Lianjiang County, which, as discussed above, is home to a heavy concentration of maritime militia units. After the mission, the boat returned to the town of Tailu, on the northeast coast of the Huangqi peninsula. Tailu hosts at least two maritime militia units. Minlianyu 60388 might belong to either. The first is based in Xiubang Village (琇邦村). This unit was featured in a December 2015 issue of PLA Pictorial (解放军画报), where it was praised for its adoption of a new command and control application (called 榕兵一号) that could be installed on a smart phone or computer, allowing local military authorities to mobilize militia members more easily for training and real-world operations. The second possibility is the Tailu Village (苔菉村) maritime militia unit, whose unit leader, Sun Yu (孙宇), was recognized as an outstanding militiaman in 2021 — suggesting that it too is an elite organization.
Fujian maritime militia forces played a similar supporting role during another major coast guard exercise that occurred near Kinmen on May 9, 2024, just before Lai’s inauguration. It involved a number of Chinese “public vessels” (公务船), i.e., ships that belong to civilian coast guard agencies. The exercise included two Maritime Safety Administration cutters (Haixun 06 and Haixun 0802), three Fujian Marine and Fisheries Bureau cutters (CMS 8002, CMS 8027, and FLE 35501), and a China Rescue Service ship (Donghaijiu 113). To support the exercise, the organizers requisitioned at least three PRC fishing boats. Taiwanese authorities did not disclose their identities, but publicly available ship tracking data suggests they came from the Longhai District of Zhangzhou, a city west of Xiamen. Longhai is home to at least one maritime militia unit.
What Comes Next
In conclusion, while maritime militia forces are not playing a major role in China’s multi-pronged pressure campaign against Taiwan, they are not completely absent from the battlespace. They are providing low-key support for China’s coast guard forces, specifically, through the conduct of drills designed to threaten Taiwan’s sovereignty and security in Taiwan-administered waters. This role makes sense, given the particular circumstances of the theater (small, close to China) and Beijing’s policy aims, i.e., to amplify Taiwan’s threat perceptions, neither of which calls for heavy maritime militia involvement.
However, just because the maritime militia has not been well-leveraged to date does not mean it will not be in the future. Fujian maritime militia units could be directed to fulfill other roles if Beijing chooses to further escalate cross-strait tensions. For instance, China could decide to enforce at least a partial closure of Taiwanese shipping traffic and raise the threat of blockade. In that case, it could mobilize maritime militia units to ensure adequate forces for such a labor-intensive operation. Beijing might also turn to the Fujian maritime militia if it needed to create a pretext for escalation. It could, for instance, order a maritime militia vessel to operate in a location or in a manner that would demand a forceful response from Taiwan. That response could then give Beijing a casus belli, justifying a decision to carry out kinetic strikes against Taiwanese ships, aircraft, and targets ashore, perhaps as a preliminary to a major attack.
In sum, China’s decisions about when and how to use the maritime militia against Taiwan will be predicated on strategic and operational requirements, which could evolve over time. What is certain is that unit availability will not be a limiting factor. In Fujian, the forces exist, and only await orders.