In early December, the crew of the US Coast Guard cutter Myrtle Hazard sailed through the night, anchored off the Pacific island state of Palau, and boarded a group of Chinese boats to obtain tens of thousands of dollars worth of sea cucumber that was said to have been . illegally harvested.
Operating about 6,600 miles from the continental U.S. and about 750 miles from its home port in the U.S. territory of Guam, the responsive cutter is part of the Coast Guard’s newest growth area: helping counter China’s growing naval power in the U.S. Pacific.
China has used coordinated action from its fishing fleets, coast guard and navy to establish its presence in the South China Sea. It is also increasingly present in the South and Central Pacific Oceans. Chinese fishing fleets are in effect around island states such as the Republic of Kiribati and Tuvalu, which have some of the richest tuna fisheries in the world, and the Chinese navy has also settled in the area, including a warship stopover in Sydney in 2019 and visits from a naval hospital ship to Fiji in 2018.
In response, the US Coast Guard is building up in the region. In recent months, it has deployed two of its most advanced new cutters in the U.S. territory of Guam, nearly 4,000 miles closer to Shanghai than San Francisco. Another one is coming in the coming months. For the first time, the Coast Guard has an attaché at the US Embassy in Canberra, Australia, and another attaché will move to Singapore next year.
The Coast Guard has been steadily expanding its operations in the Western Pacific and near the Chinese coast. It deployed cutters in the Western Pacific for more than 10 months in 2019 to partner with the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet. One, the USCGC Bertholf, sailed through the Taiwan Strait in a show of resistance to China, the first US Coast Guard ship to make the highly politicized voyage.