The United States Coast Guard is in talks with Pacific Island countries to expand its maritime law enforcement role by allowing U.S. officers to board and search vessels suspected of illegal activity within their economic zones, officials said.
The push to expand the role of the Coast Guard across millions of miles of ocean could see U.S. officials board Chinese vessels and comes after an intensification of rivalry in the Pacific between the U.S. and China, which is also seeking to increase its security and fisheries roles.
Papua New Guinea, which U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will visit this week, the first by a U.S. defense chief, struck the 12th maritime law enforcement agreement between a Pacific island nation and the Coast Guard in May.
It is the furthest country from a Coast Guard home port to reach such a pact.
So-called ship riders, or law officers from that country, will join the Coast Guard on patrols of Papua New Guinea’s 1 million square mile exclusive economic zone to combat illicit activity.
“We provide the legs, if you will, to get out to the further reaches of their (exclusive zone) and enforce laws over their sovereign rights,” Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Megan Willmann said in an interview on Wednesday.
“Whenever PNG wants us, we will try to accommodate that,” she said, adding that the goal was for an annual patrol.
Prime Minister James Marape has told parliament the U.S. agreement would “establish an expedited mechanism” for consent to board and search vessels suspected of illicit activity, ranging from drug trafficking to fishing.
The U.S. announced plans a year ago to battle illegal fishing in the Pacific as part of increased engagement with the region to counter China’s security ambitions.
Coast Guard Pacific Area Commander, Vice Adm. Andrew Tiongson, said on Wednesday a cutter would be relocated to Honolulu this year to focus on the Indo-Pacific, and would start with building partner capacity with Pacific countries.
This year, the Coast Guard patrolled nine of the 12 Pacific Island nations with which it has a ship rider agreement.
“We are definitely looking at states that have distant water fleets, and China is one of them,” Willmann said of illegal fishing.
Boarding Agreements
Some Pacific island nations are in talks to go further than ship rider agreements, to allow U.S. officials to board and search foreign vessels in their waters without a local official present, Willmann said.
“Ship boarding agreements” would reduce the diplomatic hurdles, and time constraints, the Coast Guard faces to enter port to pick up ship riders, she said.
“A lot of Pacific Island nations are interested in that and so are we. The logistics of picking up a ship rider is complicated,” said Coast Guard Capt. Angela Cook, legal adviser on the expanded agreements.
Federated States of Micronesia is the first nation to agree to the Coast Guard boarding vessels on its behalf. That country’s previous president, who stepped down in May, had complained about Chinese research vessels conducting unauthorized surveillance in its waters.
Palau also said it had asked the U.S. to step up patrols after apparent surveillance activity by Chinese vessels, which China denied.
Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, with closer ties to China, have declined recent Coast Guard port calls, however.
Willmann said the Coast Guard was waiting for diplomatic clearance to enter Vanuatu, after being unable to refuel there in January on a patrol for illegal fishing.
The Chinese navy visited Vanuatu in April to deliver relief supplies.
The U.S. is in the process of establishing an embassy in Vanuatu, after recently opening a mission in Solomon Islands, which last year struck a security pact with China that alarmed Washington and its allies.
Austin is expected to meet Marape on Thursday to discuss the next steps in the law enforcement deal, and a separate defence agreement.
Marape has told parliament the defense deal allows the U.S. to refurbish and develop Papua New Guinea ports and airports for civilian and military use.
