The United States has plans to deploy the most modern cutters in the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) to American Samoa to counter harassment of Asian countries by the China Coast Guard and its allied sea-going militia.
U.S. national security adviser Robert O'Brien revealed Friday the USCG will likely station its Sentinel-class cutters (also called Fast Response Cutters) to the American territory of American Samoa. Consisting of seven islets, American Samoa is located in the South Pacific to the north-northeast of New Zealand. It is 9,000 km distant from Hong Kong.
O'Brien said the Fast Response Cutters will be sent to the western Pacific for maritime security missions and to counter the relentless harassment of vessels by China.
He explained the Fast Response Cutters will conduct maritime security missions. These missions include fisheries patrols and enhancing maritime-domain awareness and enforcement in collaboration with "regional partners who have limited offshore surveillance and enforcement capacity."
"Enhancing the presence of the USCG in the Indo-Pacific ensures the United States will remain the maritime partner of choice in the region," according to O'Brien.
He said USCG is looking into the logistics of basing Fast Response Cutters to American Samoa. There was no mention of how many Fast Response Cutters will be sent to American Samoa. There are currently 38 operational Fast Response Cutters in USCG out of 64 planned vessels.
Calling the U.S. a Pacific power, O'Brien blasted China's "illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and harassment of vessels operating in the exclusive economic zones of other countries in the Indo-Pacific threatens our sovereignty, as well as the sovereignty of our Pacific neighbors and endangers regional stability."
He said U.S. efforts, including by USCG, are "critical to countering these destabilizing and malign actions" by China in Asian waters. China claims to own practically the entire South China Sea.
"To that end, the USCG is strategically homeporting significantly Fast Fast Response Cutters ... in the western Pacific," said O'Brien.
O'Brien said USCG continues to modernize and enhance the capabilities of its fleet of major cutters that play a prominent role in protecting vital U.S. national interests, "and where appropriate, those of our partners in the region."
Fast Response Cutters are heavily armed and were designed to be difficult to detect on radar. These boats are armed with a remote-control 25 mm Bushmaster autocannon and four crew-served M2HB .50-caliber machine guns.
They can carry up to 24 crew members and can reach a speed of 28 knots, or 52 km/h.
