No silver bullets

The fight against piracy in the Indian Ocean has just become a little more complicated. Reports that the owners of a hijacked Chinese ship have paid US$4 million to pirates to free a mainland crew held off Somalia for more than two months confirms that Beijing has no secret weapon to solve this worsening scourge.

When the coal carrier De Xin Hai was hijacked by Somali pirates on October 19, some in the embattled shipping community hoped, against the odds, that China's intensified involvement would mark a turning point.

Somehow it would be the beginning of the end; somehow Beijing would find a way of breaking the cycle of hijacking-ransom-release that has left international navies and the world's biggest shipping firms impotent in the face of a rag-tag bunch of fishermen-turned-gangsters.

As a proud, emerging power, China would not simply negotiate and pay up, the thinking went. Beijing would find a way of showing, either through force or tough backroom deals, that the whole point of being a big power is that you don't have to.

'Imagine if it was a hostage crisis in Xinjiang or some other restive province... do you think Beijing would negotiate or worry about possibly killing hostages to send the toughest possible message?,' asked one frustrated Hong Kong shipping executive. 'I don't think so.'

One must remember the desperation many across the shipping community felt in the face of increasing attacks. Over the last year, more than US$80 million is estimated to have been paid in ransom to Somali pirates, who now routinely travel hundreds of kilometres deep into the Indian Ocean to find new victims, rather than simply targeting their old stomping grounds in the Gulf of Aden. They have attacked more than 200 ships in the last year, keeping some crews hostage for months.

China is now one of 40-odd navies co-operating across the vital sea lanes that link Asia to the Middle East and Europe - a presence that has yet to dent the number or reach of attacks.