BEIJING: China’s new unified coast guard agency has gone into operation, state media reported yesterday amid maritime disputes with its neighbours, and experts said more ships will be armed as a result.
The China Coast Guard integrates the functions of marine surveillance, the existing coast guard which came under the police, fisheries law enforcement and Customs’ anti-smuggling maritime police.
The divisions “that were not allowed to be equipped with weapons can be armed now”, Yang Mian, professor of international relations at the Communication University of China, was quoted as saying by the Global Times newspaper. “The new agency will also make our law enforcement more powerful.” The agency will “have reasonable and legal law enforcement equipment” and “detect and rapidly handle in accordance with the law acts that harm China’s maritime rights and interests”, Zhang Junshe, a military researcher, wrote in a commentary in the PLA Daily. Tensions have been growing in Beijing’s island disputes with Tokyo and other neighbours. Chinese surveillance ships have frequently approached disputed islands in the East China Sea, which Japan controls and China claims them as its own.AFP
