ROC ship escorted by China off Somalia registered in Liberia: MAC
ROC Central News Agency
09/01/13 14:34:05
By Luis Yu
Taipei, Jan. 13 (CNA) A Mainland Affairs Council official said Tuesday that the Chinese navy's escort of a Taiwanese ship in the Gulf of Aden to protect it from pirate attacks was not arranged by Taiwan and that the ship was not registered in Taiwan or being used by a local company.
Chao Chien-min, vice chairman of the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), made the statement in response to a report by China's Xinhua news agency that Chinese naval vessels escorted four merchant ships, including a tanker from Taiwan, in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia.
The council had previously said it would not request or accept assitance for Taiwanese ships from the Chinese naval fleet, but that pledge seemed to be ignored when one of the ships escorted Monday was an oil products tanker belonging to Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Group named FormosaProduct Cosmos.
The MAC, however, denied any involvement in arranging the 553-nautical-mile escort and said the ship was registered in Liberia and rented out to a South Korean company.
"The MAC has in no way authorized Taiwan's semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) to negotiate or accept the protection of Taiwanese vessels by the Chinese naval fleet in the Gulf of Aden, " said Chao.
He stressed that Taiwan is not prepared to accept China's offer to help and has no plans at the moment to negotiate the issue.
Beijing's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) notified the SEF Dec. 12 that Taiwanese ships under attack or afraid of being attacked by Somalian pirates in the Gulf of Aden could request protection from China's naval task force through the SEF.
"There is currently no mechanism for processing requests by Taiwanese ships seeking escorts from Chinese warships in the Gulf of Aden, despite the Chinese Foreign Ministry's offer to protect Taiwanese vessels from pirates in the area," Chao said.
The SEF and ARATS are semi-official intermediary bodies authorized by Taipei and Beijing, respectively, to handle cross-strait interaction in the absence of official ties. The MAC oversees SEF operations.
China has deployed two of its navy's most advanced destroyers, along with 70 naval special forces soldiers, to the Gulf to protect Chinese and foreign ships in the waters off Somalia as they sail between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal.
According to the London-based International Maritime Bureau, there were over 100 pirate attacks on vessels in the region last year alone, pushing up the insurance costs of shipping companies and bringing the pirates tens of millions of dollars in ransom payments.
