China’s Coast Guard: The Tip of Xi’s Spear

In 2012, when Chinese marine surveillance vessels pushed the Philippine navy out of disputed waters in the South China Sea, Beijing learned it was possible to assert its sweeping territorial claims under the cover of enforcing domestic laws, without the help of its military. The following year, China merged five civil maritime agencies into the unified Chinese coast guard. Since 2018, it has been under the command of the paramilitary People’s Armed Police, which is itself controlled by the Central Military Commission chaired by Chinese leader Xi Jinping. China’s tactical success at Scarborough Shoal—which it effectively controls but is still…