Thresholds: Chinese Maritime Militia and Foreign Direct Investment as Non-Military Coercion in the Malacca Strait

In building a database to consolidate previously unconnected data, this report proposes that two types of non-military action in the Indo-Pacific—the Belt and Road investment project and the use of civilian vessels as maritime militia— should be viewed as interdependent and purposeful revisionary strategies used by China for its economic and political goals. In tracking this relationship, it lays out the ways in which littoral states are inhibited in their individual and collective responses and recommends cooperative actions to address this going forward.

Ms Arielle Romm