China’s military deploys English skills during tense maritime encounters

New generation of naval officers aboard PLA’s first aircraft carrier more confident in using the foreign language to warn off planes and vessels, commander says
Previously, Chinese captains rarely spoke when faced with American ships because of language barrier and lack of experience, according to naval officer

China’s military

Jack Lau

Published: 1:00pm, 4 Oct 2022

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Young military officers aboard China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, are using their English skills to warn off foreign warplanes and vessels, the ship’s commander has said.

“When encountering foreign warplanes and warships, young officers in the CUES unit use their fluent English to warn them in a domineering way, warn them proactively and deal with them steadily,” Senior Captain Lu Qiangqiang said in a video produced by state broadcaster CCTV.

The CUES unit is named after the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, a non-binding agreement signed in 2014 by more than 20 countries, including China, to prevent misunderstanding between militaries at sea by standardising how officers communicate.

CUES standards also set out safe speeds and distances to prevent collisions, making the actions of other militaries more predictable.

“This shows the intelligence and might of a big country’s navy,” Lu said. “A new generation of navy officers is making its debut to the whole world with a more professional, confident, open and international image.”

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Military ships and planes warn foreign counterparts they believe to be travelling too closely or acting in a way that could violate sovereignty or enter their country’s military warning area.

Chinese and American vessels have regularly warned each other during US operations to demonstrate the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

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In 2015, David Shear, then US assistant defence secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs, told a Senate hearing that the American and Chinese navies had used CUES to reduce the risk of miscalculations and escalation.

But People’s Liberation Army ships and aircraft have since been accused of acting unprofessionally when encountering other militaries, especially near contested waters. In February, Australia criticised the PLA Navy after a Chinese ship directed a laser at an Australian maritime patrol plane.

The Pentagon also accused a Chinese destroyer of pointing a laser at its navy’s P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft flying in international airspace near Guam in 2020. It said the actions were unsafe, unprofessional and violated CUES, which calls using a laser to harm personnel or equipment an action a “prudent commander might generally avoid”.

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Zhu Yuemeng, one of the officers featured in the video, told PLA video platform Js7tv.cn in May that the CUES unit was created in response to the need for a dedicated professional team to communicate with foreign militaries and to be more proactive at sea.

The video platform said the CUES unit was mainly crewed by officers born after 1995.

Rear Admiral Yan Zhengming, president of the PLA’s Dalian Naval Academy, told state-run China Daily in a 2017 interview that Chinese captains would not speak when encountering an American vessel.

“In the past, [they] did nothing due to [their] poor English and a lack of experience with such encounters. But things have changed greatly,” he said.

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“So, [the academy is] not only teaching them about command and combat, but also about global awareness and English, as the lack of effective communication could lead to misunderstandings or even danger.”

The Liaoning, one of the PLA’s three aircraft carriers, was bought from Ukraine as an incomplete Soviet Kuznetsov-class carrier and then retrofitted. The ship was commissioned in 2012.