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Chinese navy ensures safe shipping in Gulf of Aden

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After spending months escorting vessels in the Gulf of Aden, Wang Hongmin found it no surprise that China plays a leading role in ensuring ships from around the globe safely navigate pirate-plagued waters.

Soldiers are put through their paces on a merchant vessel before an escort mission in the Gulf of Aden earlier this year. [Chen Zhiyuan/China Daily]

"The Chinese escort fleet is very reliable in terms of escort missions," he said. "I mean, since many navies choose to patrol certain waters, the Chinese are accompanying the vessels exactly from site A to B, and then back from B to A, like a nanny who doesn't go a step away."

Wang spoke to China Daily on the eve of Monday's third anniversary of China sending escort fleets to the Gulf of Aden.

According to the Ministry of Defense, Chinese forces have escorted more than 4,300 Chinese and foreign ships in the gulf, and all missions were completed successfully.

A former captain of the missile frigate Xuzhou, one of China's most advanced vessels of its type, Wang led his crew as part of the third and seventh escort fleets that Beijing sent to waters off Somalia in 2009 and 2010-2011.

In the latter mission, his crew "fortunately" - as Wang put it - became the first group of Chinese servicemen to militarily engage with confirmed pirates.

They were also given the honor of being the first ship to escort a large number of Chinese citizens forced to leave Libya during the recent political turbulence that led to the downfall of the Muammar Gadhafi regime.

Theirs also was the first Chinese navy ship to escort a large number of overseas Chinese citizens on the start of their journey home from Libya when Muammar Gaddafi's government started to collapse.

A bold attack

Their fight with the pirates "came at noon on Nov 13 last year, when we were escorting the 275th group of ships that China took charge of," Wang said. Suddenly, they received signals for help from a vessel in the convoy, which was stretched across at least 10 km.

Soon, a pirate boat was detected advancing at high speed toward the vessel team and firing at one ship. Pirates threw a rope ladder onto it.

"We all found it unbelievable at that time," Wang said. "The pirates have become so fierce. How dare they rob a ship under the eyes of a warship?"

The Xuzhou and Chinese helicopters fired intensively at the pirate vessel until the pirates, unhurt, surrendered. Then the Chinese forces returned to the escort mission.

"But we did not stop at that," Wang said. "Later we had a meeting to discuss why the incident happened."

They agreed on two reasons: First, the Chinese navy was restrained to the pirates and would not attack them as some navies do as long as the pirates do not disturb the commercial vessels.

Second, "There are too many foreign ships applying for Chinese escort, even when they have to wait for another few days or leave the waters suggested by international escort forces as a secure area."

As long as China maintains its policy of not attacking pirates if their identities are not confirmed, Wang and his colleagues needed another countermeasure. They decided they would not allow unaffiliated ships to pass through those under their protection, and they moved the naval ships to both wings of the vessel team instead of ahead and behind.

The toughest time, he said, was when they waited for 39 days for diplomatic efforts to unfold to secure and escort a ship that had been hijacked by pirates. "We were just waiting there, with no resupply. In the end we almost ran out of food." The ship and its crew were released safely.

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