Summary

China’s People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) evolved out of a tactical challenge specific to the post-civil war period: How does a government without a formal navy protect its vast coastline from outside attack? Fast-forward to the present and the PAFMM is still being charged with unconventional tasks, though the question has now become: How does a government exert control over a contested body of water without triggering a ‘hot’ war with rival claimants?

This backgrounder explores the history, composition, and tactics of the ‘little blue men’ of China’s littoral waters – the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia.

Background

What is the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia?

The People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) is a pseudo, civilian-military coast guard that engages in gray zone operations intended to establish de facto control over disputed waters near China. These operations include providing armed escort for Chinese fishing vessels, intimidating commercial vessels from other nations in disputed waters, and dissuading the coast guards and navies of other claimants from policing their own waters for fear of possible escalation with Beijing.

Maritime militia operations are low-intensity and designed to generate acquiescence on the part of rival claimants; in essence, they seek to win the war without a shot being fired. These tactics might involve aggressive forays into waters policed by rival claimants, or more passive ‘rights protection’ missions in waters already firmly within China’s control under the oft unspoken credo that maritime jurisdiction is simply presence.

For evidence of the success of PAFMM operations overall, one must look no further than the evolving map of the South China Sea.

In keeping with its history as a ‘people’s militia,’ the PAFMM is composed of a mix of maritime workers, who receive military training similar to reserves or national guard and are subsequently eligible to be ‘called up,’ and conventional full-time military recruits. This atypical force composition is matched with a much more conventional line of command that reaches all the way up to Beijing. Consequently, the US military now views the PAFMM as a branch of the PRC armed forces on the same level as the PLA Navy and China Coast Guard.

Determining the exact size of China’s maritime militia remains a difficult task due to its vague and shifting membership – fishermen can be ‘drafted’ in and out of the force as the situation demands. Specific details about the maritime militia also rarely make it into official government documents (in fact, the ‘People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia’ itself is a moniker bestowed by the US Department of Defense). One estimate from US Naval War College expert Andrew S. Erickson puts the number of large vessels at 84. Others have estimated that the maritime militia can leverage as many as three thousand small vessels at any given time. And these numbers can be considered conservative when put in historical context: according to one 1978 estimate, the PAFMM was once composed of 750,000 personnel and 140,000 vessels.

History of China’s Maritime Militia

The PAFMM’s history stretches back nearly as long as the PRC itself. Comprising mostly of untrained fishermen, the militia was created soon after the civil war. Like the PRC’s ground-based armed forces, the maritime militia followed the Maoist logic of ‘people’s war’; it also intended to solve the more practical problem of shortfalls in naval assets and expertise among the early CCP leadership. The immediate task of the early PAFMM was to defend the mainland from Nationalist incursions. The militia was also employed in attempts to retake coastal islands from the KMT during the 1950s (the first and second Taiwan Strait crises).

But these early forays were just the beginning of the maritime militia’s enduring role in China’s littoral waters. Since its inception, the PAFMM has been a central player in numerous geopolitical stand-offs. In some of these events, the presence of the militia was arguably more decisive than that of the conventional (and historically underfunded) PLA Navy. They include:

• Capture of the Paracel Islands from Vietnam in 1974, when the presence of maritime militia vessels – many of them carrying armed crew – helped slow down the South Vietnam government’s decision-making and ultimately deter an armed response. The South China Sea island chain remains under PRC control.
• USNS Impeccable incident in 2009, when PAFMM and PLA Navy ships swarmed an unarmed US Navy ocean surveillance vessel after it encroached on China’s 200-mile EEZ south of Hainan. The confrontation involved two China-flagged fishing vessels attempting to run over the Impeccable’s sonar equipment and then blocking its path of escape.
• Harassment of Vietnamese survey vessel in 2011, when a Vietnamese seismic survey ship (Binh Minh 02) had its cables cut by China maritime militia vessels. The incident was notable in its proximity to Vietnam’s coast, taking place just 43 miles southeast of Con Co Island.
• Scarborough Shoal clash in 2012, when the Philippine Navy attempted to board and arrest Chinese fishermen suspected of illegal fishing around the Scarborough Shoal. The incident triggered a standoff between Philippine and PLA Navy vessels where Beijing came away the victor. The initial fishing vessels were reportedly maritime militia members who helped coordinate the subsequent coast guard and naval response. The Scarborough Shoal remains under PRC control.
• Haiyang Shiyou-981 rig incident in 2014, when Vietnamese vessels attempted to preempt the establishment of a Chinese oil platform near the disputed Paracel Islands. PAFMM involvement came in the form of the 35-40 fishing vessels that helped cordon off the oil platform and prevent it from being harassed by Vietnamese vessels. China maritime militia ships also reportedly harassed Vietnamese fishing vessels operating on the outskirts of the cordon.
• Senkaku Islands surge in 2016, when up to 400 fishing boats entered Japan’s territorial waters around the disputed Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu in Chinese), complete with an escort of China Coast Guard vessels. The incident mirrors a similar surge in 1978, when hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels swarmed the islands ahead of negotiations for a bilateral peace treaty.
• Whitsun Reef surge in 2021, when over 200 fishing vessels were spotted moored off of a boomerang-shaped reef claimed by both the Philippines and China. The presence of the ships drew official complaints from Manila, after which the number of China maritime militia vessels subsequently declined.
• Second Thomas Shoal tensions in 2024, when China maritime militia and coast guard vessels shifted toward more aggressive tactics in an attempt to interdict re-supply missions for the Sierra Madre, an intentionally grounded Philippine Navy vessel serving as an impromptu manned outpost. Data from the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative illustrates a clear surge of maritime militia vessels in and around the Second Thomas Shoal through 2024, along with a greater willingness to use force. After a ramming incident that nearly led to the invocation of the US-Philippines defense treaty in June, an agreement was hammered out to peacefully re-supply the Sierra Madre in July; however, the agreement failed to defuse wider tensions in the South China Sea as subsequent events at the Sabina Shoal illustrate.
• Sabina Shoal surge in 2024, when an unprecedented 203 China maritime militia vessels were recorded in and around the feature between August 27 and September 2. The surge played out against mounting tensions between opposing coast guards at the Sabina Shoal, culminating in the Philippines’ Teresa Magbanua ship being rammed by China Coast Guard vessels on August 31. The Teresa Magbanua had been stationed at the shoal since April of 2023 amid suspicion of renewed island-building activities by China.

China’s Maritime Militia: A Novel Geopolitical Tool

In light of the above, the PAFMM’s utility for China’s government becomes clear. For one, the force’s deniability – whether or not PAFMM ships are a deployed military or ‘patriotic fishermen’ – makes it perfect for the type of gray zone operations that have helped China rapidly (and likely permanently) alter the geopolitical map of the South China Sea. The goal has always been to advance China’s territorial interests without eliciting a direct military confrontation, either from rival claimants or their allies. Just consider how, over the past two decades, China has been able to occupy various features lying within the de jure EEZ of a US treaty ally in the Philippines, and all without provoking a kinetic response from Washington.

Second, China’s maritime militia helps it realize the most critical aspect of maritime sovereignty: a ground-level presence. Over the past two decades, Beijing’s sweeping claims have been subjected to all manner of legal and academic challenges, ranging from disputes over the historical evidence to a contrary judgement on the entirety of the nine-dash line claim from the Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration. Yet this same period has seen China establish a permanent and highly militarized footprint throughout the South China Sea. Why? Because the maritime militia has helped establish an enduring ground-level presence in the area, and this presence often forms the foundation of a credible sovereignty claim (legally dubious or otherwise).

Fishers in other littoral states are also patriotic, and many are increasingly angry as their catches dwindle. However, their governments lack the ability to organize, train, supply, pay, and ultimately leverage them as a geopolitical tool for staking a sovereign claim to a given reef or feature. Moreover, these fishers lack the backing of China’s powerful Coast Guard and PLA Navy vessels, which so often appear at South China Sea flashpoints and hint at a more powerful kinetic response should there be any pushback against the maritime militia’s aggressive maneuvers.

In this manner, the PAFMM has served as the lynchpin of China’s gray zone tactics in the South China Sea. These tactics for the most part have been met with great success, allowing Beijing to slowly fill out its nine-dash line claim over several decades. Yet rival South China Sea claimants are starting to evolve their own tactical response. For example, Manila is now pushing a ‘transparency initiative’ that aims to expose gray zone tactics in the South China Sea to international audiences in order to rally diplomatic support. The Marcos administration is also now leaning heavier on regional allies like Japan and Australia, and the Philippines’ treaty ally in Washington, to which it extended new military base access in 2023, including to Balabac Island in Palawan, which lies just 200 kilometers away from the contested Second Thomas Shoal. Whether or not these new tactics bear fruit remains to be seen, but it stands to reason that the maritime militia will continue to feature prominently in Beijing’s South China Sea strategy for the foreseeable future.