Geez, I'm glad you're not war minister. It's a Chinese registered ship with a Russian captain.
If a terrorist crashes a truck with Portuguese plates into the US embassy in Berlin, would that mean Portugal's declared war against the USA?
I happened to notice that at least in some cases, the change of terminology happened roughly when it became clear that offensive war was a losing proposition in terms of money and resources. I suspect that as invading the neighbours became financially irrational, the cool heads that tend to survive in management shifted their stand from mixed offense/defense to just defense.
That's really not all you are saying, and the difference is important. Maybe not to you, though.
At the very least, the cooperation of Portugal's authorities would be expected to determine how the truck ended up being used for the attack, and if anyone knew about how the vehicle was to be used.
I expect the same amount of cooperation from China as the flag state.
But there is a "but", which is that in the articles of war, the flag of a ship does have quite a few implications. E.g. when two nations are at war, stopping ships flagged as belonging to the opposition gives certain rights of stopping and searching them, blockading their passage, seizing the vessels and cargo, etc.
And the relevant characteristic in that case is the flag, not the captain's nationality: > Art. 51. Enemy character. The enemy or neutral character of a vessel is determined by the flag which it is entitled to fly.
Of course this isn't really automatic and triggered by the smallest thing, both sides kind of have to "agree" to be at war, e.g. by a counter-attack, a declaration following the attack or something like that. And nobody really wants to take that bait, due to the huge consequences involved.
Yet, it is China playing with fire here, we all can be happy that none of the affected nations took them up on their "offer" of war.
China may back Russia to try to shift perception of the west's military might/will or to drain resources or just to buy Russia by making them dependant to get those juicy Russian natural resources but they aren't going to start world war iii to help Putin with his fetishistic "yet another European dictator" fantasy.
The Chinese know how to play the game same as the Russians and the US. All these little games are just calibrated psyops, why destroy, very publicly, comms lines when tapping it would be far more beneficial to a war effort and much quieter? Maybe to make the West look weak and unable to defend their borders which affects consequences domestically like say channeling political support to isolationist politicians who want to retreat from supporting Ukraine? Cause those politicians didn't make gains in the last European elections or nothing.
I am sure if the cowardly Russians ever did this to USA, it would cause a much bigger drama and retaliation wave, and China would take the hit as well.
They can later claim that the crew and captain acted on their own will, without orders from the Chinese leadership. They can duly punish the captain and crew or disavow the vessel and declare them renegade, disallow them to fly their flag. But without such a declaration, a nation such as China is responsible for the conduct of their fleets, be they civilian or military. And any vessel they allow to fly their flag is part of their (in this case civilian) fleet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience
> A ship's flag state exercises regulatory control over the vessel and is required to inspect it regularly, certify the ship's equipment and crew, and issue safety and pollution prevention documents.
Because US law is strong in this regard, the US military is by far the largest contributor to the count. Less than 200 civilian vessels are flagged in the US; https://www.statista.com/statistics/652126/us-flag-oceangoin....
A few years later it was clear that offense was necessarily a resource loss. Someone who wanted to build a career as a civil servant might then see a defense ministry as a viable option, but not any sort of offensive war. Offense was clearly not viable, and therefore not a good basis for budget allocations, and therefore the good career move for the civil servants was to focus the ministries entirely on defense.