Piracy: revenge of the impoverished

• Source: Global Times
• [02:59 October 21 2009]
• Comments

Sitting at a choking point of the Gulf of Aden, on a route from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, Somalian pirates reportedly raked in $120 million in ransom money last year. The cost of insuring ships going through the route is said to have increased tenfold.

Incidents of Chinese ships being captured are increasing with China's expanding business presence globally. The country's shipping giant COSCO now runs the world's second-largest fleet of ships.

Early this year, China started sending naval forces to the Somalian sea areas to protect Chinese commercial ships.

But given the busy traffic flow, military escorts are not a viable option. The nearest Chinese navy ship fleet is one day and one night away from where the Dexinhai was captured by pirates.

Globalization can broaden prosperity, but it can bring despair globally as well. It is obvious that though hijacking happens on the high seas, it originates from an extremely poor country, ditched by the global system, not able to stand on its own to patrol its 3,060 kilometers of coastline.

It is impossible to root out the threat of piracy without solving the problem of poverty. It's an age-old problem and a solution is nowhere in sight. But we have to face and try hard to solve this old problem if we want a peaceful life.

Ship fleets are still traveling busily through the Gulf of Aden.

Any one of them could be the next target of the pirates.