Piracy: Somalia’s Biggest “Industry”

After nearly 18 years of civil war, clan infighting, banditry, invasion, military occupation and insurgency, Somalia is a land on the brink, facing a humanitarian crisis more severe than that in Darfur. Even a minor disruption to the flow of donated food could kill thousands.

…

By David Axe

Today, the Gulf of Aden and portions of the Indian Ocean practically belong to modern-day cutthroats armed with assault rifles and anti-tank rockets and traveling in fast “skiffs” that can run down all but the speediest vessels. From modest beginnings a decade ago, Somali pirates have taken advantage of their country’s anarchy to build sophisticated criminal enterprises that rake in millions of dollars annually, making piracy Somalia’s biggest industry.

Read the rest from The Washington Times:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20
09/jan/04/danger-on-the-high-seas/

China Targets Pirates in Naval Mission

Chinese warships headed toward Somali waters Friday to combat piracy, the first time the communist country has sent ships on a mission that could involve fighting so far beyond its territorial waters.

The deployment to the Gulf of Aden, which has been plagued by increasingly bold pirate attacks in recent months, marks a major step in the navy’s evolution from mostly guarding China’s coasts to patrolling waters far from home.

The move was welcomed by the U.S. military, which has been escorting cargo ships in the region along with India, Russia and the European Union. But analysts predicted the Chinese intervention could be troubling to some Asian nations who might see it as a sign of the Chinese military becoming more aggressive.

 
In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, a ceremony is held before a Chinese naval fleet sets sail from a port in Sanya city of China’s southernmost island province of Hainan on Friday, Dec. 26, 2008. Chinese warships, armed with special forces, guided missiles and helicopters, set sail for anti-piracy duty off Somalia, the first time the communist nation has sent ships on a mission that could involve fighting so far beyond its territorial waters.(AP Photo/Xinhua, Zha Chunming)

The naval force that set sail from southern Hainan on Friday afternoon included a supply ship and two destroyers — armed with guided missiles, special forces and two helicopters. China announced it was joining the anti-piracy mission Tuesday after the U.N. Security Council authorized nations to conduct land and air attacks on pirate bases.

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Stewart Upton said the U.S. welcomed China’s move.

Pirates working out of Somalia have made an estimated $30 million this year, seizing more than 40 vessels off the country’s 1,880-mile (3,000-kilometer) coastline. Most of the attacks have occurred in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Deploying ships to the area helped stoke national pride among Chinese who feel their increasingly wealthy nation should be playing a bigger role in world affairs.

By WILLIAM FOREMAN
Associated Press Writer

The front-page of the Southern Metropolis Daily — one of southern China’s most popular newspapers — had a photo Friday of a special forces member posing with his finger on the trigger of an assault rifle armed with a grenade launcher. A headline read, “They won’t rule out a direct conflict with pirates.”

For several decades, China has kept a massive army focused on protecting its land borders, while the country’s navy was relatively weak. But in recent years, as China became more deeply involved in the global economy, it concluded that a stronger navy was needed to protect its increasingly vital sea shipments of oil, raw materials and other goods.

China has been rapidly beefing up its navy with new destroyers, submarines and missiles. Naval officers have even been talking about building an aircraft carrier that could help the navy become a “blue-water” force — a fleet capable of operating far from home.

Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii, said the naval buildup and the mission to Somalia are the latest signs that China is no longer willing to rely on the U.S. or other foreign navies to protect its increasingly global interests.

“China has not been dissuaded from entering the field,” Roy said. “That leaves open the possibility of a China-U.S. naval rivalry in the future.”

Roy predicted China’s move would alarm Japan and some in South Korea because both countries have long-standing territorial disputes with China. But he said most Southeast Asian countries may see China’s involvement in the anti-piracy campaign as a positive thing. It would mean that China was using its greater military might for constructive purposes, rather than challenging the current international order.

India, another longtime rival of China, would likely welcome the Chinese naval presence off Somalia for the short term, said C. Uday Bhaskar, a former naval commander and retired director of India’s Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses. He doubted it would upset the strategic balance.

“If it is working for the common good, then I think India will welcome it,” he said.

China’s military has not said how long the mission would last, but the state-run China Daily newspaper recently reported the ships would be gone for about three months. The paper said about 20 percent of the 1,265 Chinese ships passing through the Somali area have come under attack this year.

The mission will likely offer Chinese sailors invaluable on-the-job training, according to Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based intelligence company. The mission will be complex, with crews having to do refueling, resupply and repairs far from home amid the constant threat of pirate attacks.

The waters will also be crowded with naval ships from around the world, testing the Chinese ships’ abilities to communicate effectively with other vessels in a common mission that has little central organization.

The Chinese will very likely monitor the way foreign forces, “especially U.S. warships, communicate with each other and with their shipborne helicopters,” the Stratfor report said.

A NATO task force to the Gulf of Aden was recently replaced by a European Union flotilla with four to six ships patrolling the area.

About a dozen other warships, including U.S., German, and Danish ships, are in the region as part of a separate international flotilla based in Bahrain and engaged in anti-terrorism operations. Several individual nations, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Malaysia and India, also have vessels in the Gulf of Aden.

The China Daily on Friday quoted Rear Adm. Du Jingchen, the mission’s chief commander, as saying a total of 1,000 crew members will be on the three Chinese ships.

“We could encounter unforeseen situations,” Du was quoted as saying. “But we are prepared for them.”

Related:
 China Launching First Long-Range Naval Mission Since 15th Century

China’s Anti-Piracy Warriors, Ready To Go

As a veteran airborne naval soldier, 43-year-old Zhao Jianhua has been on lots of sea trips, but none means more than the one officially started on December 26, 2008.

He is travelling with the Chinese naval fleet, along with 800 crew members, heading for the Gulf of Aden on China’s epic anti-piracy mission off Somali waters. It is the first time China has mobilized military forces to safeguard the national interests overseas since the ancient Ming Dynasty (1368 -1644).

As the Deputy Colonel of the helicopters’ unit of the Chinese navy’s escort fleet, Zhao is in charge of the elite forces who will pilot helicopters as part of three strategic missions: to patrol and guard the flotilla from danger, to aid in search and rescue, and to transport supplies and crew.

From: China Daily

Read the rest:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-12
/30/content_7354627.htm

 
In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, Chinese Navy special force members wave on the deck of a warship. Chinese warships, armed with special forces, guided missiles and helicopters, set sail Friday for anti-piracy duty off Somalia, the first time the communist nation has sent ships on a mission that could involve fighting so far beyond its territorial waters.(AP Photo/Xinhua, Zha Chunming)

China projects naval power in pirate fight

China’s dispatch of two warships to help battle Somalian pirates has drawn an ambivalent global reaction – a sign of the decidedly mixed feelings toward its bid for big-power status.

Two destroyers and a supply ship steamed out of a southern Chinese port Friday, on China’s first patrol and potential combat mission beyond Chinese waters. The ships are due to reach the Gulf of Aden by Jan. 6 and carry 870 crew members, including 70 elite Navy special forces trained in close combat and helicopter-borne raids, according to the China Daily newspaper.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor

Two days earlier, a Chinese defense official, at a rare press conference, gave one of the clearest indications yet that China plans to build an aircraft carrier.

The developments reflect China’s determination to boost its sea power, in line with its rising economic and political clout.

“Now we have more overseas interests and activities, so that’s why we need a stronger force on the oceans,” says Peng Guangqian, a military expert in Beijing.

The United States frets about how a bulked-up Chinese Navy might complicate a Taiwan conflict scenario. But it welcomed the decision to join amultinational naval “posse” battling Somalian brigands, who have turned waters off east Africa into a hazardous pirates’ alley and wreaked havoc on world trade. Still, some of China’s Asian neighbors have expressed concern about its naval muscle-flexing.

 
China Navy’s destroyers, the Haikou, top left, and the Wuhan, bottom left, and supply ship the Weishanhu, right, are moored at port before leaving for the Navy’s first oversea operation from Sanya, southern China’s Hainan province Friday, Dec. 26, 2008. On Friday, warships armed with special forces, missiles and helicopters will sail for anti-piracy duty off Somalia, the first time the communist nation has sent ships on a mission that could involve fighting so far beyond its territorial waters.(AP Photo/Color China Photo)

Read the rest:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/2008
1230/ts_csm/ochinaboat_1

Related:
China’s Growing Naval Might Worries Many

China’s Anti-Pirate Naval Force Near Singapore

The Chinese naval fleet sailed into the Strait of Malacca on Monday after its departure from China’s southernmost island province of Hainan on an escort mission against piracy off Somalia Friday afternoon.

The fleet sailed into Singapore Strait Monday morning after over 20 hours’ voyage from the South China Sea and arrived at the Strait of Malacca. It is expected to reach the Indian Ocean Tuesday.

Xinhua

The convoy, which includes two of China’s most sophisticated naval destroyers, DDG-169 Wuhan and DDG-171 Haikou, and a supply ship Weishanhu, is heading for the Gulf of Aden to join a multinational patrol in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes where surging piracy endangers international shipping.

Above: Missile Destroyer Haikou 171 of the PLA Navy’s South China Sea Fleet. 
She is heasded for the Gulf of Aden with two other Chinese ships to deter
Somali pirates.

The fleet carries about 800 crew members, including 70 soldiers from the Navy’s special force, and is equipped with missiles, cannons and light weapons.

Read the rest:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-12/29/content_7351266.htm

Somali Pirates: Living The High Life While Neighbors Suffer Extreme Poverty, Government Collapses

Despite piracy, seacoasts of Somalia are mired in poverty.  The money paid to pirates in ransom benefits only a few….Any thought you had of “Robin Hood” style pirates helping their fellow countrymen is not supported by the facts….Meanwhile, President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed of Somalia has resigned….

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From the Maritime Global Net

A Voice of America journalist has filed reports from Hobyo in the Galmudug region of central Somalia which indicate that ransom money [paid to pirates] is not being diverted directly to Islamic terrorist or rebel groups, despite some media reports to that effect and that the main Islamic militia, Shabab, is clamping down on pirates. Hobyo, which has been a pirate stronghold is now under Shabab’s control. Also, contrary to some reports, Alisha Ryu found that local people did not support the pirates at Hobyo and that virtually none of the ransom money was being used to their improve living conditions or benefit the local community. The growing strength of Islamic groups in the coastal area may, she says, be tied to local anger over piracy and deepening poverty.

 
Pirates shoot on the deck of the Chinese ship “Zhenhua 4″ in the Gulf of Aden December 17, 2008 in this photo released by China’s official Xinhua News Agency.

Ms Ryu also reports that the Shabab Islamic militia which is doing much of the fighting against the central government and is is control of large areas of southern and central Somalia is strongly opposed to piracy. It fought a pitched battle with the pirates who have been operating out of Hobyo on 22 December and took control of the town.

The VOA reporter quotes a pirate as saying that all pirates in central Somalia are under severe pressure from Islamists to disband. He says that, in recent months, pirates trying to go ashore in any area controlled by the Islamists have been threatened and chased away. She says that Somali sources tell VOA that the Islamists’ tough stance against piracy has prompted many poor people in coastal communities to quietly begin supporting the return of Islamist rule.

Ms Ryu notes in one of her reports: “While the loss of Hobyo to the Shabab has dealt a clear blow to piracy, it raises another troubling question, especially for the United States and its western allies. They must now decide which, pirates or militant Islamists, pose a greater threat to global security and economy.”

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Somalia’s transitional president has resigned amid a power struggle with the African nation’s prime minister and parliament, sources told CNN on Monday.

From CNN

Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed tried to fire his PM this month but later lost a confidence vote.

Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed announced his resignation Monday before parliament in Baidoa.

Ahmed’s resignation is the latest turn in the political crisis in Somalia, which is already struggling with an Islamist revolt, a refugee crisis and rampant lawlessness that has fueled a wave of piracy off the Horn of Africa.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991. The U.N.-backed transitional government has the support of Ethiopian troops that ousted an Islamist government at the end of 2006, but it controls little of the country outside the southwestern city of Baidoa.

Read the rest:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa
/12/29/somalia.president.resigns/index.html

Somalia Pirates: Least Anticipated World-Changing News Story of 2008

Poverty, political chaos and technology merged at the seaside this year to witness a resurgence of piracy and pirates.  Insurance for shipped goods went up so the nations of the world sent their Naval forces: including China which deployed at long range for the first time in more than 500 years….

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Over the past year, Somali pirates have hijacked everything from luxury yachts to oil tankers, defying foreign navies and holding the world to ransom over one of the planet’s busiest trade routes.

What was once a group of disgruntled fishermen has turned into a fearsome organisation which has attacked more than 100 ships this year alone and raked in an estimated 120 million dollars in ransom money.

Somali pirates captured the world’s attention when they hijacked a Ukrainian cargo carrying combat tanks in September and a Saudi-owned super-tanker fully laden with two million barrels of crude two months later.

 
Pirates shoot on the deck of the Chinese ship “Zhenhua 4″ in the Gulf of Aden December 17, 2008 in this photo released by China’s official Xinhua News Agency.

Armed with rifles, grenade-launchers and grapnel hooks, the pirates have wreaked havoc in the Gulf of Aden, where thousands of merchant vessels bottle-neck into the Red Sea each year.

The cost of ransoms, delays and insurance premiums has hit the shipping industry hard, prompting some companies to opt for the longer but safer route around the Cape of Good Hope.

 
German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung, left, watches German frigate Karlsruhe sailing out of the harbour of Djibouti, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008. The warship is part of the EU mission ‘Atalanta’ protecting civil ships against pirates at the horn of Africa.(AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

“This unprecedented rise in piracy is threatening the very freedom and safety of maritime trade routes, affecting not only Somalia and the region, but also a large percentage of world trade,” the top UN envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, said recently.

From Middle East Online

The latest high-profile hijackings have jolted the international community into action, with the dispatching of naval forces by the European Union and NATO to bolster already existing operations in the region.

 
French frigate Nivose (centre at left) escorts commercial ships in the Gulf of Aden.(AFP/File/Eric Cabanis)

Brussels earlier this month trumpeted its first-ever naval force, dubbed Atalanta, but pirates have demonstrated their ability to adapt to growing surveillance and started shifting their attacks further south and out to sea.

Foreign navies have thwarted some attacks but pirates have hardly been deterred and obstacles remain to an finding an approach that would substantially curtail piracy off the Somali coastline.

In its first mission beyond territorial waters, China also sent two destroyers and one supply ship to join the fleet of foreign navies patrolling the pirate-infested waters.

The number of different countries and jurisdictions involved create many legal complications to effective anti-piracy efforts.

For example, if US naval forces board a Greek-owned Panamanian-flagged ship with a Chinese crew to arrest Somali pirates and transfer them to Kenya, no fewer than six countries are involved.

Piracy “poses an enormous challenge to the international legal system”, UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, said at an international conference on piracy in Nairobi on December 10.

Experts have outlined a programme that would allow naval coalition countries to transfer detained pirates for prosecution in coastal countries such as Kenya, Yemen, Djibouti or Tanzania.

Yet all agree that piracy cannot be effectively tackled without a stronger strategy aimed at restoring law and order ashore.

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution authorising states combating piracy to conduct operations on land in Somalia.

Above: Missile Destroyer Haikou 171 of the PLA Navy’s South China Sea Fleet.  She departed with two other Chinese warships on a mission to the Gulf of Aden near Somali on anti-pirate patrol on Friday.  Many in the West see this as a sign of renewed cooperation between China and other military powers.

It allows states to “take all necessary measures that are appropriate in Somalia” to suppress “acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea.”

Pirates have operated almost unimpeded in the northern breakaway state of Puntland and further south along the coast of Somalia, which has had no functioning institutions for years and is in the throes of an ever-worsening conflict and humanitarian crisis.

Related:
China Warships Depart on Anti-Piracy Mission Near Somalia
.
 Somali Pirates: Living The High Life While Neighbors Suffer Extreme Poverty, Government Collapses

Read the rest:
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=29421

China Takes First Step as Naval Power

On Friday, two destroyers and a supply vessel departed on China’s first long-range naval expedition since 1433. The decision to join the global armada in the pirate-plagued waters off Somalia is a momentous step in China’s rise as a world power.

It is also a precious chance for others – especially the United States and India – to build maritime security cooperation with China before Beijing forms any risky habit of solo military forays.

By Rory Medcalf
International Herald Tribune

China has long been a free rider on the ocean highways. It has enjoyed the benefits of maritime trade and energy routes, so vital to its economic boom, while other countries’ navies have kept them open.

Yet with growing wealth, pride and ambition come expectations that Beijing will contribute to the safety of an interdependent world. It was only a matter of time before China, along with the other awakening giant India, joined the club of maritime security providers, using their fleets simultaneously for self-interest and the common good, whether fighting piracy, interdicting smuggling or delivering disaster relief.

That day was hastened when the sea-brigands of Somalia caught Chinese vessels, cargoes and sailors in the net of their brazen raids. Press photos of Chinese mariners squatting at gunpoint on their hijacked trawler provided an incentive that was hard to resist. New Delhi’s idea that the Indian Ocean was India’s Ocean, plus its assertive policing, was another.

Related:
China Warships Depart on Anti-Piracy Mission Near Somalia

Read the rest:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/28
/opinion/edmedcalf.php

China’s Growing Naval Reach May Cause Worries

China’s Pacific neighbors worry that the superpower’s growing naval power could cause regional tensions to rise and fester…

The first deployment of three Chinese ships to the coast of Africa in hundreds of years means China is becoming more involved in world and international matters.  The pirates in Somalia are causing insurance prices to rise for everyone.  So China’s committment and involvement causes many to applaud.
. 

But not everyone is applauding China’s naval moves.  Many worry.

Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, to name just a few nations, worry that China’s growing naval strength means China will eventually want something in Asia and have the power to take it without too much discussion.

Even Pacific Ocean nations like Australia worry that China will become too dominant in the region.

Here at Peace and Freedom, readers from Vietnam, Japan and South Korea have swamped us with questions about China’s actual strength at sea — and China’s intent.

And why does China need a large navy?  What is China’s “Grand Strategy”?

“I think the objective of the grand strategy is to squeeze out, very slowly and very gradually, the influence of the United States in East Asia, without war, with economy and culture,” said Chong-pin, Professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University in Taiwan.

The “Grand Strategy” will ultimately include aircraft carriers.

China will “seriously consider” building aircraft carriers to protect its vast maritime territory, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense said on just last week as the anti-piracy mission was being prepared.

Huang Xueping made the remarks at a news conference called to announce details of a Chinese flotilla that departed for Somali waters on Friday to protect Chinese ships from pirates.

Asked whether the Chinese navy’s first deployment abroad is a good opportunity to build a carrier, Huang said the government would seriously consider the issue.

“Aircraft carriers are a symbol of a country’s overall national strength as well as the competitiveness of its naval force,” Huang said.

“China has a long coastline and the sacred duty of China’s armed forces is to safeguard the country’s marine safety and sovereignty over coastal areas and territorial seas,” he said.

Above: Near the Republic of Korea (Oct. 7, 2008). The ROKS Gangkamchan (DDH 979) steams by a line of  warships during the International Fleet Review “Pass and Review.”

China has many mineral rights and oil disagreements at sea with Japan, Vietnam and other nations — and a poweful navy means to these countries that China will, before long, lay down the law from Beijing on other regional neighbors.

According to Japan’s Navy Retired vice admiral Fumio Ota, currently director of the Center for Security and Crisis Management Education of the National Defense Academy, “One reason is China wants to make advances in the sea to secure energy resources. The other is to survey and expand the area of its operational waters in preparation for a war with Taiwan ….. China’s State Oceanic Administration has said: ‘The one who controls the sea will survive and grow. China will build a powerful and modern maritime state.’”

Most worriesome to the United States and those neighbors of China is this: no one really knows how big and capable China’s navy has become or how much China is spending on naval programs.

Beijing’s rapidly growing military spending, estimated at $85 billion to $125 billion last year, is still dwarfed by the United States, where a half-trillion dollars is shelled out for defense spending each year, not counting money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last year said the U.S. Navy needs to spend about $21 billion annually on new ship construction over 30 years to meet its goal of a 313-ship fleet. That is far above the Pentagon’s average spending between 2000 and 2005, and about $6 billion more than President Bush requested for this year.

But it is China’s secrecy on military spending and programs that causes so many to worry in Asia — and that is why U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates frequently speaks about the need for ”transparency” in both China’s military investments and their intentions.

China’s military spending and intentions are hidden behind a fog of state controlled media and government secrecy.

On the aircraft carrier issue,  China’s Maj. Gen. Quan Lihua said:

“The question is not whether you have an aircraft carrier, but what you do with your aircraft carrier.  Even if one day we have an aircraft carrier, unlike another country we will not use it to pursue global deployment or global reach.”

Of course: we can all trust China.

Related:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf
/12/26/china.pirates/index.html
.
Piracy draws China back to the ranks of maritime giants
.
China’s “Grand Strategy”: U.S. Out Of Asia?
.
China Launching First Long-Range Naval Mission Since 15th Century

General Hints China’s Navy May Add Carrier

 
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, seen here in December 2008.(AFP/Getty Images/File/Scott Olson)

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From the Associated Press

China’s willingness to send ships so far from home is also the latest example of the growing power and confidence of the country’s navy. In recent years, the military has been loading up on warships, planes, missiles and other weapons — a beef-up that has worried its neighbors and the U.S.

Those most concerned include the Japanese and South Koreans, who have long-standing disputes about territorial waters that occasionally flare up. China has also been locked in an uneasy stand off with the Philippines, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations over the ownership of the potentially oil-rich Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii, said countries in the region will view China’s mission off Somalia differently.

“For Japan and some in South Korea, this is another step in the unwelcome growth of the Chinese navy as a capable blue-water force, which has only downsides for Tokyo and Seoul,” said Roy, an expert on China’s military.

“I think the objective of the grand strategy is to squeeze out, very slowly and very gradually, the influence of the United States in East Asia, without war, with economy and culture,” said Chong-pin, Professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University in Taiwan at Princeton.

But he said most Southeast Asian countries may see China’s involvement in the anti-piracy campaign as a positive thing. It would mean that China was using its greater military might for constructive purposes, rather than challenging the current international order.

However, the analyst added, “The Chinese deployment gets at a question the U.S. and other governments have been asking: ‘Why the big Chinese military buildup when no country threatens China?’ Or more bluntly, ‘Why do the Chinese need a blue-water navy when the U.S. Navy already polices the world’s oceans?”‘

Roy said the answer is that China is unwilling to rely on the U.S. to protect China’s increasingly global interests. Beijing still believes it needs to enter the field, Roy said, and that leaves open the possibility of a China-U.S. naval rivalry in the future.

China has said the mission’s purpose was to protect Chinese ships and crews that have come under attack from pirates. The vessels would also be willing to share intelligence and conduct humanitarian rescue operations with other countries involved in the anti-piracy efforts, Senior Col. Huang Xueping, spokesman of the Ministry of National Defense, said Tuesday.

Read the entire article:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,473044,00.html

Japan Readies Naval Mission to Fight Pirates

As China dispatched three warships toward the coast of Africa to fight piracy, Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso told his cabinet to speed up preparations for a possible deployment.

Near Somalia, the following nations now have naval forces on the anti-pirate patrol: Germany, France, Britain, Iran, India and the United States.  Chinese ships are on the way and Japan may send a force soon.

South Korea also has a trained anti-pirate patrol protecting war material returing from Iraq.  South Korea does not now intend to deploy near Africa.

 
File photo of South Korean Navy sailors on a vessel off TaeYonpyong Island in South Korean waters. South Korea said Wednesday it would send a destroyer to keep pirates away from military equipment being shipped back from Iraq.(AFP/Pool/File)

 
In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, a ceremony is held before a Chinese naval fleet sets sail from a port in Sanya city of China’s southernmost island province of Hainan on Friday, Dec. 26, 2008. Chinese warships, armed with special forces, guided missiles and helicopters, set sail Friday for anti-piracy duty off Somalia, the first time the communist nation has sent ships on a mission that could involve fighting so far beyond its territorial waters.(AP Photo/Xinhua, Zha Chunming)

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Japan on Friday moved a step closer to sending its navy to piracy-plagued waters near Somalia, with Prime Minister Taro Aso instructing his cabinet to speed up preparations for a possible deployment.

Aso “told me to accelerate studies so that the Self-Defence Forces can take measures against piracy as soon as possible,” Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters, referring to Japan’s military.

AFP

A growing number of nations are sending navy ships to fight pirates near the lawless East African country, with Japan’s neighbour and sometime rival China dispatching three vessels on Friday.

Japan has been pacifist since defeat in World War II. Under domestic law, the navy can only protect ships flying the Japanese flag or carrying Japanese passengers.

Aso, speaking with reporters late on Thursday, called for Japan to revise the law so it can also guard foreign vessels but held out the option of sending ships that for now have a limited role.

“Japan should take action in a hurry,” Aso said.

“We had better consider revising the law, but that will take time. If we have to hasten things, then we should take a defensive posture on the sea.”

Japan’s opposition controls the less powerful upper house of parliament and has repeatedly held up legislation in hopes of forcing the unpopular Aso to call early elections.

Kyodo News, quoting unnamed sources, said the government hoped to send a destroyer in February.

Japanese forces have not fired a shot in combat since World War II. But the country has tried to take on a larger role in international security, notably through a reconstruction mission in Iraq.

China’s dispatch of two destroyers and a supply ship mark the first time in recent history that Beijing has deployed vessels on a potential combat mission well beyond its territorial waters.

Read the rest:
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,
,2-11-1447_2445757,00.html