Maybe the Chinese Communist Party's "People's Liberation Army Navy" - yes, that's really what they call it - should be practicing some basic ship-handling skills, rather than harassing a Philippines Coast Guard ship. But harassing such a ship they were, with the China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel 3104 and a Chinese PLAN destroyer performing some risky maneuvers around the Philippines Coast Guard ship BRP Suluan, when the two Chinese vessels collided with each other.
That's some real "Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" stuff right there.
Two Chinese ships collided with each other in the South China Sea on Monday while trying to harass the Philippines’ coast guard, video shows.
In a high-speed chase, the China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel 3104 was pursuing the Philippine patrol ship BRP Suluan approximately 10.5 nautical miles east of the contentious Scarborough Shoal, deploying water its water cannon at one point, according to Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) Spokesperson Jay Tarriela. As the CCG vessel approached the boat, it collided with a larger Chinese Navy destroyer that attempted to intervene by positioning itself between the Philippine ship and the coast guard cutter.
“The CCG 3104 … performed a risky maneuver from the PCG vessel’s starboard quarter, leading to the impact with the PLA Navy warship. This resulted in substantial damage to the CCG vessel’s forecastle, rendering it unseaworthy,” the spokesman wrote.
You can see the collision for yourself:
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The incident reportedly caused “substantial damage” to the CCG vessel, rendering it unseaworthy, with offers of assistance by the Philippine Coast Guard being ignored by the Chinese.
But wait! There's more!
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The footage shows significant damage to the focsle of CCG-3104 as well as a large hole in the forward port side of DDG-164. Right before the collision, several sailors can be seen on the focsle of the Chinese Coast Guard vessel, with them likely to have been killed or at least suffered serious injuries.
Now, Chinese Communist Party or not, we can hope there was no loss of life on that Chinese Coast Guard vessel. As it happens, the Philippine Coast Guard promptly assisted with recovery and medical treatment, which strikes me as not only a good humanitarian effort but something that one would think would be an elementary law of the sea.
After the crash, the PCG assisted with recovering overboard crew members and provided medical aid for injured CCG personnel, Tarriela said.
In the United States Navy, this is the kind of thing that gets ship commanders relieved in disgrace - or, at least, it should. I'm not sure what penalties for a cluster foul-up like this are in the PLAN, but China being a Communist country, I can imagine that the punishment would be... stringent.
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China has been feeling its oats just a little too much in the West Pacific in the last few years. They have been conducting "exercises" around Taiwan, they have been harassing Philippine shipping and fishing vessels, and (along with Russia) they have been flying nuclear-capable bombers near Alaska, trailing their coats down the coast. Now, many of these are old Cold War games, especially the "freedom of navigation" excursions carried out by Chinese and Russian military aircraft; we do it to them, too.
But today, we see that as far as naval operations and ship-handling go, the Chinese aren't all that-not just yet. And, it's OK to do a little pointing and laughing.
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