They are normally unarmed, but when it can all change at any time. It's hard to notice when that change is happening.
All of sudden there can be 50,000 or 100,000 ships carrying sea mines, underwater listening devices, depth charges, targeting systems or short range anti-ship missiles. Just like their merchant cargo ships they have some standardization that allows PLA to plan ahead what they can carry.
If USN carrier group must sail to help Taiwan in short notice and huge fleet of these ships just happen to stand in the way, then what? It's huge risk just to just assume that they are unarmed and sail trough, or that they have not mined the area. Just being able to provide targeting for Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles is a big problem.
Even if just 10% of them are armed, USN would have to sink or inspect every one of them to neutralize the threat. 7th fleet is not carrying enough anti-ship missiles board to take them down quickly.
>If USN carrier group must sail to help Taiwan in short notice and huge fleet of these ships just happen to stand in the way, then what? It's huge risk just to just assume that they are unarmed and sail trough, or that they have not mined the area. Just being able to provide targeting for Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles is a big problem.
Sounds like they're using civilian ships as human shields or cannon fodder to me. What's the legality of this? I feel like this would run afoul of some sort of international law requiring combatants to be identified[1], or preventing them from using civilians as human shields[2]. Can
If they are, and one were to draw up a list of other human rights violations and international laws that China is breaking, I don't think this would make the top five.
All of sudden there can be 50,000 or 100,000 ships carrying sea mines, underwater listening devices, depth charges, targeting systems or short range anti-ship missiles. Just like their merchant cargo ships they have some standardization that allows PLA to plan ahead what they can carry.
If USN carrier group must sail to help Taiwan in short notice and huge fleet of these ships just happen to stand in the way, then what? It's huge risk just to just assume that they are unarmed and sail trough, or that they have not mined the area. Just being able to provide targeting for Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles is a big problem.
Even if just 10% of them are armed, USN would have to sink or inspect every one of them to neutralize the threat. 7th fleet is not carrying enough anti-ship missiles board to take them down quickly.