ABOARD HMCS MONTRÉAL, SAILING IN THE SPRATLY ISLANDS — The Eurythmics blasted through the lone freewheeling speaker on the flight deck as the 10,000-ton China Coast Guard ship sailed past the Royal Canadian Navy frigate.
Sweet dreams are made of this.
Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world and the seven seas.
Everybody’s looking for something.
The aviation detachment paused to take in the view of the “monster” – a nickname for the Chinese cutter with a hull number of 5901. The world’s largest Coast Guard vessel was steaming in the eastern part of the Spratly Islands, near Mischief Reef, a built up atoll that features an 8,900-foot runway and an airfield. The airmen had just watched the cutter come over the horizon off Montréal’s starboard side, passing the People’s Liberation Army Navy Type 053H3 frigate CNS Luoyang (527) that had been shadowing the Canadians the entire day.
The crew kill the music for a few moments to watch the ship sail past. The speakers switch on again and blare Alanis Morissette as the air crew resumes wrenching on the CH-148 Cyclone helicopter.
On the bridge, Lt. Hank Kieser was the officer of the watch as 5901 appeared. Montréal was sailing north in the South China Sea, more than halfway through a 26-hour loop in the Spratlys. After 5901 passed 2.4 miles astern of the Canadian frigate, Montréal was 50 nautical miles west of Mischief Reef, continuing a standard transit through the world’s most contested waters.
For Kieser, it was a standard day on the job. Throughout his two-and-a-half-hour watch that humid August afternoon, he performed his usual bridge routine, toggling a black fidget spinner between his fingers as he checked his radars, Automatic Identification System and made sure the lookouts were alert.
“In some ways, those quiet watches are actually more difficult to keep your eyes out,” Kieser said. “Little fish floats can sneak up on you and you don’t want to run over those because – obviously that’s someone’s livelihood – but obviously at the same time you don’t want to get nets fouled in their bumps or anything like that.”
It was a typical Sunday at sea for the crew of the Halifax-class frigate. The cooks made a roast with garlic mashed potatoes and string beans for supper. They changed over the hot sauce of the week and served the daily morning soup at 10 a.m. Those on bridge watch that morning discussed their next port visit to Vietnam. Sailors were looking forward to Sundae Sunday, a weekly tradition.
Malaysia and the Philippines have each staked claims in parts of the Spratly Islands, which sit 110 nautical miles west of the Philippines’ Palawan Island and about 740 nautical miles from mainland China. China, Vietnam and Taiwan each claim the whole island chain. Brunei says a continental shelf in the Spratlys is part of its exclusive economic zone, according to the CIA World Factbook.
When announcing the weather each morning during the transit, Montréal’s meteorology tech noted a chance of showers, part of the predictably unpredictable climate in the Spratlys this time of year.
Since the 1990s, China has maintained a military presence in the Spratlys, first with small outposts composed of huts on stilts, eventually expanding to artificial islands. C-shaped Subi Reef hosts a runway and military complex. The Chinese launched an unmanned aerial vehicle from Fiery Cross to monitor Montréal during the transit. On Mischief Reef, China started a landfill operation in 2013, making room for significant infrastructure to replace what was once an atoll of low-lying reefs surrounding a large lagoon.
Canada doesn’t recognize China’s maritime claims in the Spratlys, but Montréal remained outside the 12 nautical mile line that a nation can command for a territorial sea. For this transit, the Canadian warship deliberately sailed by Subi Reef, Fiery Cross and Mischief Reef – all features that China has built up and militarized over the last 15 years.
China has justified those bases by asserting a dubious historical claim to more than 75 percent of the South China Sea, known as the Nine-Dash line, which has been rejected by an international court in the Hague.
“They’ve claimed these areas as their internal waters, which the Nine-Dash line and the Ten-Dash line have claimed these areas – those are not recognized internationally,” Cmdr. Travis Bain, Montréal’s commanding officer, told USNI News. “They were not recognized before,” Cmdr. Travis Bain, Montréal’s commanding officer, told USNI News of China’s claims. “And Canada continues to sail in the areas that are free and open.”
Shift in Status Quo
The standoff between western navies and China is a relatively new dynamic, the result of what U.S. officials describe as a years-long Chinese effort to militarize artificial islands in international waters. In 2006, when Bain first deployed to the Indo-Pacific, the ship he sailed on made a port call to China and even drilled with the PLAN. But he acknowledged the situation has changed over the last two decades.
“There’s more tension in the region,” Bain said during an interview from his cabin.
China “is interested in what we’re doing in the region and we’re interested in what they’re doing in the region,” he added.
In April, the Halifax-based Montréal crossed the Atlantic bound for the Pacific via the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal for Canada’s Operation Horizon. As part of the year-old Canadian Indo-Pacific strategy, Ottawa will deploy three of its warships annually to build regional partnerships. Earlier this month, Montréal sailed with the U.S. and the Armed Forces of the Philippines in a series of joint exercises in the South China Sea.
Canada is a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trading block that’s responsible for almost CAD 22.7 billion in exports and almost CAD 28 billion in imports, independent of trade with China, according to Canadian trade data.
In 2014 and 2016, the United States invited China to the biennial Rim of the Pacific exercise off the coast of Hawaii. Then, in 2018, the U.S. military disinvited China because of its ongoing campaign building artificial islands throughout the Western Pacific.
In 2017, when Royal Canadian Air Force Maj. Jack Lawson was attached to a ship deployed to the region, PLAN warships didn’t care to shadow the Royal Canadian Navy.
“This is international waters, we’re allowed to be here. And it’s a message back from the Chinese saying, ‘we’re here too,’” Lawson told USNI News of Montréal’s current deployment. “However we want to interpret that, they are certainly giving us a message that they weren’t giving 10 years ago.”
Over the last decade, Canada, the U.S., and other NATO countries like the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany have prioritized operations in the Indo-Pacific, seeking to counter China’s influence and military buildup in the region.
While USNI News was embarked aboard Montréal, Italian Navy carrier ITS Cavour (550) drilled nearby with U.S. aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in the Philippine Sea. Canada now deploys multiple frigates each year to the Indo-Pacific, some overlapping, to demonstrate the country’s commitment to the region, and plans to increase that presence across its government. Other efforts include hammering out a free trade deal between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Canada and helping countries in the region combat climate change.
After participating in RIMPAC last month, HMCS Vancouver (FFH-331) sailed to the Indo-Pacific to continue its deployment.
“A third of our major surface combatants are coming here,” Bain told USNI News. “There’s a significant presence that needs to be continued on with other nations, other navies.”
‘Delightfully Boring’
China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy routinely shadows western military vessels. The Canadian frigate was no exception. During the two days it took the frigate to perform the Spratly transit, Luoyang kept a watchful eye on Montréal.
“We’ve noticed that the Chinese vessels – all their navy and coast guard – we try to stay two miles away from them, they try to stay two miles away from us, generally, with a few exceptions,” Kieser said.
The sailors aboard Montréal knew they were getting shadowed and were told not to bring their personal cell phones to the upper decks. They refer to the Chinese as their “friends” or “friendly escort.” Boatswains and aviation technicians having a cigarette in the smoking pit on the port side of Montréal look on as the Chinese warship sails a few miles away, sometimes leading, other times following the Canadian frigate. There’s no land as far as the eye can see, but the PLAN warship is always in view.
But throughout the sail, several sailors point out that if the Chinese were operating near Canadian shores, the RCN would shadow them, too.
Montréal is a 4,700-ton anti-submarine frigate – one of a dozen in the Canadian Navy – with a crew of about 230 sailors and nearly two dozen airmen from the Royal Canadian Air Force.
After completing its loop through the contested waters and receiving fuel from USNS Rappahannock (T-AO-204) just north of the island chain, Montréal turned around, sailing south. The ship was re-tasked to perform the same transit in reverse.
“The more time we can spend here, the more we can start to observe the pattern of life, the more we can prove that we’re allowed to operate in international waters,” Lt. Zach Johnson, Montréal’s operations officer, told USNI News. “[We can] see how they operate, see who’s here.”
The first loop of the transit was “delightfully boring,” Johnson said.
That night, just after 9 p.m., Mischief Reef was 36 nautical miles east of Montréal. SLt. Joshua McCullough was the lead on the bridge for a portion of the southbound transit. The CO certified him just last week to serve as the officer of the watch.
Nighttime watch in the Spratlys can look like an obstacle course. The horizon was dotted with lights at varying degrees of brightness – all contacts the lookouts scanned for and that McCullough had to report if they came within two nautical miles of Montréal. Some of them flashed in and out, almost like a lighthouse.
“If they were lit up like a Christmas tree, they’re probably a squid boat,” Johnson said. “That’s one of the techniques they use for squid fishing. It makes them easy to see anyway.”
That Monday evening, McCullough counted at least 15 vessels visible to the naked eye, while the lookouts spotted at least 21 with the night vision goggles.
“If the Earth was flat, we would see bright lights,” McCullough explained. But because the Earth is round, the lights started off looking hazy when they’re still over the horizon. Some of them flickered as they bobbed up and down in the swell. Eventually, once they came over the horizon at about 9.5 miles out, they beamed a white or yellow light.
“They all blink a bit when they come over the horizon, so it kind of draws your eye to them and then you’re paying attention,” he said.
McCullough, 35, is from Victoria, British Columbia, on Canada’s west coast. He’s been sailing sailboats since he was 15 years old and knows celestial navigation, making stargazing on the bridge all the more useful.
Montréal had a few more hours left of the transit, which ended when the ship exited the island chain south of Subi Reef and north of Fiery Cross – two features China has built up to host its infrastructure in the Spratlys.
It was bright night on the sea, with the moon shining off the ship’s starboard side, illuminating the surf and undoubtedly helping the bridge watch crew spot any fishing boats and buoys on the surface.
‘Safe and Professional’
Interactions between the Canadian and Chinese sailors are strictly business. Seeking to adhere to the so-called rules of the road at sea, an officer of the watch might pick up the radio to let the Chinese know if they need to turn port or starboard to avoid a fishing vessel or buoy.
“They usually just say, ‘copy your message, out,’” Kieser said of those exchanges.
“Sometimes we’ll have days when we’re on the horn with them three or four or five times, but on a day like today, where there’s not a whole lot going on, we’re just hanging out, just going through international waters, it would be – I would say – uncommon,” Kieser said.
Montréal’s commander Bain echoed the sentiment.
“All of our transits in the area have been safe and professional,” Bain added after the sail through the Spratlys. “I haven’t seen any unprofessional actions.”
But that’s not always the case. In June 2023, Montréal was sailing through the Taiwan Strait with USS Chung-Hoon (DDG-93) when a PLAN Type 052D destroyer cut across the bow of Chung-Hoon, coming within 150 yards of the U.S. destroyer. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command at the time said China’s actions defied the rules of the road at sea. Montréal sailed through the Taiwan Strait on July 31 and Chinese forces said they monitored the transit.
On the bridge Tuesday afternoon, McCullough was coming off watch in a few minutes. After 23 hours retracing most of its path, Montréal finished the transit through the Spratlys sometime between five and six a.m. and slowly sailed west toward Vietnam.
McCullough recalled a particular evening at dusk, when the PLAN warship’s silhouette was visible on the horizon.
“It’s a shame that we can’t contact each other, because we both get very nice pictures of each other’s ship,” McCullough said.
