China to send warships to fight Somali pirates

December 19, 2009 (BEIJING) – Government decided to send warships to fight pirates off the coast of Somalia, the Chinese foreign ministry announced on Thursday.

NATO ships rescued the Chinese ship, Zhenhua 4, from Somali pirates on Wednesday. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean off Somalia has become a major headache as it pushes up insurance costs or forces ships to take alternative routes.

China’s deputy foreign minister, He Yafei, told the state news agency Xinhua that China was “seriously considering sending naval ships to the Gulf of Aden and waters off the Somali coast for escorting operations in the near future.”

The Global Times, a newspaper linked to the Communist Party, said the deployment would include two destroyers and a large supply ship. The report said the ships would set out after Christmas for a mission initially lasting three months. Tasks would include patrols and escorting cargo ships.

The Chinaese fleet would join ships from the U.S., Denmark, France, Italy, Russia and other countries in patrolling the Gulf of Aden, which leads to the Suez Canal and is the quickest route from Asia to Europe and the Americas.

Earlier this week, the UN Security Council adopted a landmark resolution authorizing for the first time the use of land operations against Somali pirates in a bid to clamp down on audacious, well-armed gangs menacing vessels in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Somalia’s transitional government controls only of a small part of the country, and the UN Security Council slapped an arms embargo on the country in 1992 under resolution 733.

(ST)