By David Tweed

(Bloomberg) — China has practically completed a large coast guard ship and can most likely deploy it armed with machine weapons and shells within the disputed South China Sea, the Global Times reported, dubbing the vessel “The Beast.”

China Coast Guard vessel 3901, with a 12,000 ton displacement, will carry 76 millimeter speedy fireplace weapons, two auxiliary weapons and two anti-aircraft machine weapons, the paper reported, citing unidentified individuals and pictures posted on the Internet.

It would be the second of China’s mega-cutters which might be the most important on this planet, based on the Global Times. An identical boat entered service final 12 months within the East China Sea, the place China is individually concerned in a territorial dispute with Japan.

The vessels present the more and more blurred traces between China’s coast guard and its navy and will complicate efforts by nations such because the U.S. to forestall the territorial disputes within the South China Sea — one of many world’s busiest transport lanes — from sparking clashes at sea.

China is beefing up the weapons carried by its so-called white-hulled fleet, which beforehand concerned ships armed at most with water canon and sirens, based on Ryan Martinson, a researcher on the China Maritime Studies Institute of the U.S. Naval War College. The ship now underneath development is bigger than a number of the U.S. naval vessels that patrol the world, and will pose a problem for the Pentagon on easy methods to reply.

‘Testy Encounters’

“U.S. naval commanders now must prepare for the possibility of testy encounters with Chinese mega-cutters on the high seas in peacetime, when their advanced weapons systems will do them little good,” Martinson wrote in a June report predicting the deployment of the brand new ship. “This is an uncomfortable prospect given that China’s mega-cutters are larger than most U.S. surface combatants.”

The USS Lassen, which the U.S. employed final 12 months on a freedom of navigation operation to problem China’s claims to synthetic islands it has constructed within the South China Sea, is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, which usually displace about 9,700 tons. Coast guard ships aren’t required to stick to the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea agreed between the U.S. and Chinese navies in April 2014.

U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson has described China’s use of its coast guard as a “gray area” that must be countered in a inventive manner that stops wanting hostilities, based on a report in Navy Times. China’s assertions to 80 % of the South China Sea conflict with 5 different nations.

Hull Number

The hull quantity offers a clue as to the place the brand new ship might be deployed, based on Collin Koh Swee Lean, an affiliate analysis fellow on the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. Numbers beginning with two are assigned to the East China Sea department of the coast guard, and people beginning with three have a tendency to move to the South China Sea.

The CCG 3901 has a helicopter platform and hangar within the stern able to transporting heavy helicopters, the Global Times reported. It additionally dwarfs the 2 largest vessels within the Japanese coast guard, which displace 6,500 tons and have been till lately the world’s largest coast guard ships, based on Martinson’s report.

“In the type of missions China’s coast guard is asked to perform, ship size is a key determinant of capability,” Martinson wrote. “When there is a major size disparity, the larger ship can simply drive others away.”

China’s coast guard has additionally transformed former naval frigates for civilian use and one in every of them patrolled inside the 12-mile exclusion zone that Japan claims round uninhabited islands within the East China Sea. Another armed guard ship entered Japanese waters on Jan. 8, based on Japan’s coast guard.

–With help from Isabel Reynolds, Ting Shi and Dominic Lau.

©2016 Bloomberg News