China calls for more int’l cooperation in combating Somali piracy

November 2012

At a recent meeting of the United Nations Security Council, China appealed to the international community to increase communication and cooperation in the continuing battle against Somali piracy.

Chinese deputy permanent representative to the U.N., Wang Min, made this statement at a meeting of the council about piracy. Wang admitted that thanks to recent cooperation, the piracy epidemic has been reduced in leaps and bounds, but to permanently eradicate the problem, further cooperation is needed.

“We hope that the international community will continue to be guided by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and relevant international laws, enhance communication and coordination to further fight piracy through taking coordinated actions,” he said.

He also noted that while combating the risk of piracy, international coalitions need to be careful not to overstep the bounds of sovereignty and maritime territory of countries involved in the situation.

“We support the coordination role played by the UN in this regard. It is important to enrich and improve cooperation mechanism, enhance information sharing, effectively prosecute and bring those involved in piracy to trial so as to form synergy in our fight against piracy,” said Wang.

Wang also noted China’s support for countries in West Africa who are cooperating to rid their own waters of a similar pirate problem. These countries have recently banned together to increase information sharing, and they are taking steps to augment their own internal abilities to fight piracy and maintain port-security.

He noted that while the efforts to combat the symptoms of the problem, pirate attacks, have been successful, an effort to address the root cause would be needed eventually. The problem lies in the poverty and instability of countries like Somalia, and until that is solved, more people will resort to piracy for income.

“We call upon the international community to double its efforts, provide more assistance to the African countries and the least developed countries in order to play a positive role for relevant countries in maintaining national stability, eradicating poverty and realizing economic and social sustainable development.”

China has dealt with the pirate problem by using their naval forces to provide escorts to cargo convoys. Since 2009, the country has engaged in escorting nearly 5,000 ships in 515 different escort missions. Many of these ships are foreign vessels. Wang noted that there has yet to be a pirate incident on even one of these escorted vessels.