China Coast Guard and Patrol vessels

The latest google update allows us to estimate the dimensions of the big CCG cutter. My lines aren't entirely straight, but the measures are definitely in the correct ballpark.

To get a sense of scale, Burke is 155m long with a 20m beam, and Sejong is 165m long with a 21.4m beam.
The JCG's Shikishima class cutter which held the previous title for world's biggest coast guard cutter is 150m long with a 16.5m beam.

Basically, this is a big ship.

Sorry guys since last couple of months I was away from the forum, hence I lost the count here. Could someone assist by furnishing the latest updated list of CG (commissioned/laid down/under construction).

Patrol vessel Haixun-21 prepares to set off for a patrol mission at a port in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, April 21, 2015. The patrol vessel Haixun-21 and Haixun-1103 have set out for a 3-day patrol mission on the waters of Xisha Islands in South China Sea. (Xinhua/Guo Qiuda)

Click to expand...

A patrol vessel leaves for a patrol mission from a port in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, April 21, 2015. The patrol vessel Haixun-21 and Haixun-1103 have set out for a 3-day patrol mission on the waters of Xisha Islands in South China Sea. (Xinhua/Guo Qiuda)

Click to expand...

A sailor watches a patrol vessel leaving a port in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, April 21, 2015.

Click to expand...

Patrol vessels Haixun-21 and Haixun-1103 set off for a patrol mission at a port in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, April 21, 2015. The patrol vessel Haixun-21 and Haixun-1103 have set out for a 3-day patrol mission on the waters of Xisha Islands in South China Sea. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng)

Click to expand...

I still say CCG Admin should put guns on their cutters; 30 or 40mm on 1-2KTs, 76mm on 3KT+, 76mm on 4KT+, and 100mm on their new 12KT strategic cruisers. From the photos I've seen, all of China's neighbors have guns on their CG cutters.

I disagree. Putting guns on a ship could make the crew over-confident and aggressive, and make other ships that it interacts with nervous. Besides, if another ship opened fire on a Chinese ship, that would give China the moral high ground and casus belli for more assertive acts to the long-term detriment of its foes. In contemporary international relations, it is useful to be perceived as the victim. Look at how Vietnam invited foreign media to watch its coast guard ships get rammed and hosed during the oil rig incident last spring. They wanted the world to see their ships get pushed around by Chinese ships to strengthen their narrative of China bullying its smaller neighbor.

Geographer said:

I disagree. Putting guns on a ship could make the crew over-confident and aggressive, and make other ships that it interacts with nervous. Besides, if another ship opened fire on a Chinese ship, that would give China the moral high ground and casus belli for more assertive acts to the long-term detriment of its foes. In contemporary international relations, it is useful to be perceived as the victim. Look at how Vietnam invited foreign media to watch its coast guard ships get rammed and hosed during the oil rig incident last spring. They wanted the world to see their ships get pushed around by Chinese ships to strengthen their narrative of China bullying its smaller neighbor.

Click to expand...

The Coast Guard cutters of all of China neighbors have guns, and yet they managed thus far to control their propensity to be overconfidence and aggressive. Do you have reasons to believe China's Coast Guard would act in less professional manners? Again, China is the outlier and adding guns on their cutters would only bring them in line with everyone else in the region.

As for victimhood, no Western press would take that stand, even if it's 100% true. Don't believe me? Look at how the lame stream media describe terrorism against China in Xinjiang.

Blackstone said:

The Coast Guard cutters of all of China neighbors have guns, and yet they managed thus far to control their propensity to be overconfidence and aggressive. Do you have reasons to believe China's Coast Guard would act in less professional manners? Again, China is the outlier and adding guns on their cutters would only bring them in line with everyone else in the region.

As for victimhood, no Western press would take that stand, even if it's 100% true. Don't believe me? Look at how the lame stream media describe terrorism against China in Xinjiang.

Click to expand...

I don't think the Chinese CG would act less but I do know the opposing parties will use their media to the fullest to spin and portray the Chinese in the worst way possible. It was reported today that a Filipino senator has proposed the Philippines should wage a propaganda war against China. So a giant 12,000 ton CG vessel with guns will be exactly what the other parties need. When the Japanese CG unleashes water cannons on Chinese fishermen, it's a restrained way of dealing with those dangerous fishermen yet when the Chinese CG takes a page out of that playbook, oh look at those bullies nearly drowning and hurting those innocent fishermen. So no, I think its very smart for the Chinese to hold back on arming their CG vessels that will engage with the other parties. The only thing they are using instead is to build bigger CG vessels and more of them. Now if the first non-water shot is set off by the other parties, you can be sure the Chinese will quickly arm their CG vessels or start calling in a naval frigate that is loitering nearby.

I do believe the Chinese are arming CG vessels that are meant to only patrol their internal waters. So this is a calculated decision.

Well, the whole thing about 'poor Chinese fishermen being the target of foreign CG cutters' while they're fishing on the territorial waters of other countries (not disputed ones) and being able to kill CG officers (like it happened in South Korea) is surely a 'demonisation' of China.

And how Chinese CG cutters are armed is surely not the decission made by the means of 'how will it look in the eyes of Eastern press' because the last concern for Chinese government is what they write about in the US press when it come to real politics and the ones who don't care at all are surely people living in the mainland China.

So I think that bringing that up on a military forum where military aspects should be discussed is only downgrading any sort of discourse.

If you really think the arming of the CCG cutters has nothing to do with how outside media portrays and perceives China then I think you are being naive.

Every military is sensitive to public relations and outside perception of how it arms itself and how it is perceived and what is exposed about it. The PLA has such a high operational security around its development exactly because it knows the kind of reaction and response that complete openness would entail. Can you imagine if it had officially revealed to foreign media in the early 2000s that it was working on a 5th generation stealth fighter, with the same kind of openness of western military programs? The media circus would inevitably have caused a response from rival nations and their own weapons procurement. The same deal goes for virtually all the PLA's development.

In a more relevant vein to this thread, using the CCG as the force to enforce Chinese claims over disputed waters rather than say, the navy, is entirely related to minimizing the perception and possible portrayals that foreign media can create, and the responses that foreign governments can end up choosing.
Hell even the recent ONI report has said that China deliberately uses relatively lightly armed CCG vessels to contest disputed waters rather than naval ships due to perception reasons (paraphrasing).

So you can complain about how the media isn't actually demonizing China or whatever, but the fact logically remains that the PLA are aware about how it is portrayed and perceived by foreign media because that ultimately directs the response that rival governments may end up pursuing -- and to ignore rather than acknowledge it will hinder attempts to understand many of the military aspects of the PLA. If acknowledging these factors upsets you then you are obviously free to protest to the mods.


----

I feel the need to add that I'm only saying we should acknowledge the importance of PLA sensitivity to foreign portrayals of it and its attitude to PR in general. I'm not saying that every decision it ever makes is entirely dependent on how it will be seen by foreign media, nor am I saying that their sensitivity applies equally to all situations.

However what I am very much bewildered by is the idea that this factor isn't or shouldn't be something to be considered due to being "unrelated" to military aspects, even though it actually completely is.

Since adding guns on existing and new CCG vessels wouldn't change one iota how the Western, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Filipino press paints it (as bully), CCG might bring their cutters in line with all other nations. Being "unarmed" buys CCG no goodwill at all.