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MAC denies accepting Chinese escorts for ROC ships off Somalia

ROC Central News Agency

2009-01-08 20:41:06

By Luis Yu

Taipei, Jan. 8 (CNA) The Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has not authorized the semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) to negotiate or accept an offer from China to protect Taiwanese ships in the Gulf of Aden, a senior MAC official said Thursday.

Responding to the Chinese Foreign Ministry's offer to protect Taiwanese ships from Somalian pirates in the Gulf of Aden, MAC Vice Chairman Chao Chien-min said Taiwan is not prepared to accept the offer and has no plans 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 Arden could request protection from China's naval task force through the SEF.

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 contact between the two sides. The MAC oversees SEF operations.

According to Chao, however, there is no mechanism for processing requests by Taiwanese ships seeking escorts from Chinese warships in the Gulf of Aden. "We understand that many Taiwanese ships need to pass through that area, " said Chao, adding that the government is evaluating and consulting with the United States and other countries the possibility of sending warships from the Republic of China Navy to the Gulf of Aden to join vessels from other navies patrolling the area.

Two of the Chinese navy's most advanced destroyers embarked last Friday for the Gulf of Aden in a landmark mission to escort Chinese and foreign ships and protect them from pirates in the waters off Somalia.

The Chinese naval deployment is operating with the approval of the United Nations Security Council and Somalia's transitional government in response to a recent surge in the number of pirate attacks on vessels plying the crucial shipping route.

Last year alone, there were over 100 pirate attacks on vessels in the region, pushing up the insurance costs of shipping companies and bringing the pirates tens of millions of dollars in ransom payments.