U.S. Coast Guard ships previously deployed in the Middle East are now operating out of Singapore and the Philippines to help challenge China’s assertion of power in the Pacific. The six 154-foot fast-response cutters are part of the Coast Guard’s reimagined “expeditionary cutter squadron,” which can be sent anywhere in the world. Their first deployment is the western Pacific, where tensions have run high for years as China escalated what is called a gray-zone campaign to project control around Taiwan and the disputed waters of the South China Sea.

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