Analysts: Vietnam Expanding Fishing Militia In South China Sea

TAIPEI - Vietnam’s maritime militia in the South China Sea shows signs of growing over the past decade, say scholars and a research institution in China where the government disputes parts of the waterway with Hanoi.   

According to the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, a research organization based in the Chinese province of Hainan, the 12-year-old militia numbers between 46,000 to 70,000 personnel. It says 13 platoons with a combined 3,000 people operate near the sea’s contested Paracel Islands and another 10,000 people operate armed fishing boats off southern Vietnam.  Ten years ago the militia "was just starting up", said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center in Washington.     “They are trying to expand the maritime militia,” said Collin Koh, maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. “The idea is that the existing maritime militia needs to expand its manpower.”