The purpose would be to make it so the act of ramming is what causes them damage. Sure, they could actively attack the Chinese vessels, but it’d be a lot easier to claim no fault if the Chinese ship runs into you and that causes it to be damaged/destroyed.
I think having some hollow tipped spikes under the water line that detach and leave an inlet pipe in the Chinese ship could be a good idea. Explosive charges could be another option, but at what point is that an active or passive effect?
That’s not a silly argument if your argument is about national security. For the exact same reason, China blocks almost all western apps. It gives a potential route for whatever nation is considered hostile to influence your population, and TikTok has actually activated this influence at least once directly. They tried to activate their users to protest congress from passing laws restricting them.
Basically, they have the ability to influence users, and they also have the will to do so as they’ve already shown. In what world eould they not be a national security threat? It’s also really hard for me to accept this argument from a Chinese company when China has the great firewall to “protect” it’d citizens from outside influence.
You can argue that it is not to benefit the citizens and rather just the state, which is fair. You can’t reasonably argue that the state has nothing to fear.