Chinese fight off pirates the old-fashioned way

It isn’t every day that Somalia beats China in a battle of military technology… and still loses. On Tuesday, it was the well-armed, satellite-phone-wielding Somali pirates who held up a Chinese cargo ship. The crew members’ defense? Petrol bombs! The makeshift Molotov cocktails worked well enough to hold off the pirates until an international patrol ...

By , International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Colombia.

It isn't every day that Somalia beats China in a battle of military technology... and still loses.

It isn’t every day that Somalia beats China in a battle of military technology… and still loses.

On Tuesday, it was the well-armed, satellite-phone-wielding Somali pirates who held up a Chinese cargo ship. The crew members’ defense? Petrol bombs! The makeshift Molotov cocktails worked well enough to hold off the pirates until an international patrol helicopter intervened.

No wonder China is dispatching ships to join the international contingent of navies patrolling against piracy in the gulf of Aden. 1,265 Chinese ships have passed through that same corridor this year and 20 percent of those came under attack. Not good odds.

Alas, should we just start shipping our Suez-bound goods over land? I’ll let you see a lay of the land and decide for yourself: the president has fired the prime minister. Parliament is impeaching the president. The U.S. wants to send peacekeepers, but U.N. diplomats fear that’s suicide. The entire country is food insecure, and about half is a humanitarian emergency.

No wonder the pirates prefer the seas

Elizabeth Dickinson is International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Colombia.

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