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PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS

Martin Purbrick

To cite this article: Martin Purbrick (2018) PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS, Asian Affairs,49:1, 11-26, DOI: 10.1080/03068374.2018.1416010

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03068374.2018.1416010

Published online: 15 Feb 2018.

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PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS

MARTIN PURBRICK

Martin Purbrick has lived and worked in Asia for nearly 30 years. He is aformer Royal Hong Kong Police officer whose service included SpecialBranch engaged in counter-terrorism intelligence. Since leaving thepolice in 2000, he has worked in the security industry for various corpor-ations. He has written previously for the Asian Affairs Journal. Email:mtpurbrick@mac.com

Introduction

Piracy in the South China Sea, in the Strait of Malacca, and in the seasbetween the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia has been endemic forcenturies. Piracy in the region has never been eradicated and has long his-torical roots on the coasts of Sumatra, the Indonesian and Malaysiancoasts along the Strait of Malacca, the Philippines, and the south coastof China. Considering the complex coastal geography of the region, theterritorial disputes amongst the littoral states, and the volume of vesseltraffic passing through the South China Sea, piracy is not likely to be era-dicated in the near future unless a major naval power projects force in theregion with the acceptance of the littoral states.

There is a historical prevalence of piracy often resulting from the geogra-phy of archipelagoes divided by nation states and populated by poorcoastal dwellers who make a living from the sea. This has been exacer-bated in the past several decades as over-fishing of waters in SouthEast Asia by large international trawlers has led to declining catchesfor local fishing communities, leading to greater poverty, and fishermenturning to piracy for income.1

Piracy in South East Asia has in the past several decades also been relatedto several Islamist terrorist groups in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indo-nesia that use piracy as a means of raising funds or as part of their conflictwith the authorities and jihad. This connection has been higher profile inthe past several years as ISIS ideology has been associated with Islamistgroups in Mindanao in the Philippines, which have become an extensionof the Caliphate claimed by ISIS in the region. Abu Sayyaf, an Islamist

© 2018 The Royal Society for Asian Affairs

Asian Affairs, 2018

Vol. XLIX, no. I, 11–26, https://doi.org/10.1080/03068374.2018.1416010

terrorist group with a history of engaging in piracy and other crimes suchas kidnap for ransom, has been endorsed by ISIS leadership. A faction ofthe Abu Sayyaf Group led by Isnilon Hapilon pledged allegiance to theISIS Caliph in June 2014 in a video posted on YouTube.2

The current conflict with terrorist groups in the Philippines has high-lighted the links with Indonesians and Malaysians. The alliancebetween Isnilon Hapilon’s faction of the Abu Sayyaf Group and ISIShas attracted supporters from across South East Asia to join the fightagainst government forces in Mindanao, illustrating the fluid nature ofties between people in the southern Philippines and parts of the Malaysianand Indonesian archipelagoes. This is a region of fishing and seafaringpeople who have made their economic living, and in some communitiestheir homes, on the seas. The national boundaries of the Philippines,Malaysia, and Indonesia are not of primary importance to such peoplewho cross the maritime boundaries of these states without concern forborders.

These national boundaries stretch across the South China Sea that feedsinto a “complex of seas”3 connecting China through the East ChinaSea to Japan, the Sulu and Celebes Seas to The Philippines, Malaysia,and Indonesia. These seas connect Asia to the world via the narrow stra-tegic maritime passages of the Malacca Strait between Indonesia, Malay-sia, and Singapore to the west, to the south the Sunda Strait betweenSumatra and Java, and to the east the Tsushima Strait between Japanand Korea. Piracy has been a part of life on these seas for centuries.

History of piracy in the South China Sea and South East Asia

There are long-established pirate centres on the south coast of Sumatra,on the Indonesian coasts along the Strait of Malacca, and on the southcoast of China. Unlike piracy in the Mediterranean Sea and along thecoast of North Africa, piracy in South East Asia has not been systemati-cally tackled by a powerful nation state or combined navies of multiplestates acting in collaboration for a prolonged period in the 20th and 21st

centuries.

From 1801 US Navy ships engaged in a small war with the Barbary Statesto combat the Barbary pirates, resulting in an 1805 treaty with the ruler ofTripoli that amongst other provisions required punishment for Tripolitanship commanders who abused any American or plundered their ships.4 In

12 PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS

the 1840s and 1850s the British Navy sent several small warships onpunitive raids against the ‘Riff Pirates’ on the Mediterranean coast ofMorocco, but eventually relied upon ground forces of the Sultan ofMorocco to take decisive action against the villages where the RiffPirates lived.5 These concerted actions had an impact on the suppressionof piracy in the Mediterranean and along the coast of North Africa.

From the 1840s on the South China coast the British Navy was engagedin anti-piracy operations for decades, eventually operating from thecolony of Hong Kong after it was obtained in 1841 and used as aharbour for licensing and the inspection of Chinese junks.6 The domi-nance of the British Navy from the 18th century to World War Tworesulted in continued suppression of piracy in the South China Sea asBritish warships attacked and pursued pirates not only into territorialwaters but also to attack land bases that supported pirates.7

The ‘golden age of piracy’ in the South China Sea was during the inter-war years between 1918 and 1939 when civil war was raging in Chinabetween the Nationalist and Communist forces and ‘warlords’ controlledlarge areas of the country. During this period the waters around HongKong and Macau suffered from rampant piracy. During the 1920s insome years “hardly a week went by without piracy of coastal steamersand freighters.”8 Attacks such as that on the river steamer SS Sui An inNovember 1922 after the ship left Macau bound for Hong Kong resultedin two guards killed and the ship taken by pirates and stripped, resultingin increased anti-piracy measures such as heavy machine guns and armedsecurity officers on ships.9 Protection included an ‘anti-piracy corps’formed in 1914 to protect ships and eventually in 1930 a special unitof over one hundred men led by Hong Kong Police non-commissionedofficers (NCOs) which included Indians from the Punjab, Chinese fromWei Hei Wei (a British ‘Treaty Port’ in Shandong Province), andWhite Russians exiled after the 1917 revolution and civil war in Russia.10

The prolonged pirate activity on the southern coast of China during the1920s and 1930s also illustrates how anti-piracy measures at sea haveonly limited impact and cannot eradicate piracy unless action on landis also taken. In 1927 the British Navy and the Hong Kong Police con-ducted several joint operations to attack pirate bases in Bias Bay (nowknown as Daya Bay) located in Guangdong Province and well outsideof British Hong Kong territory, which had a temporary impact onpirate attacks.11 However, piracy off the south China coast continuedthrough the 1930s and only World War Two provided a major

PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS 13

interruption. After the war the anti-piracy guard unit of the Hong KongPolice was not re-constituted but many of the Shantung and White Rus-sians of the unit were integrated into the Hong Kong Police.12

FollowingWorld War Two piracy in the South China Sea increased in thevacuum of absent colonial powers patrolling the region and general law-lessness as weak new nations gained their independence. Between 1959and 1962 in North Borneo alone officials recorded 232 pirate attacks.13

The increase in piracy was probably assisted by the proliferation ofweapons left over from World War Two, the limited governmentcontrol over remote areas in Indonesia and the Philippines, and continuedlow-level conflicts such as the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960.

The instability in the region in the 1960s, notably during the VietnamWarinvolving the USA, contributed further to piracy in the South China Sea.The end of the war in 1975 led to a surge in the availability of weaponsand also a prolonged exodus of refugees from the new Socialist Republicof Vietnam. The refugee situation was worsened in 1979 after the briefwar between Vietnam and China that led to ethnic Chinese Vietnamesecitizens fleeing the country. Pirates preyed upon both groups of refugeesand by 1981 80 per cent of refugee arrivals in southern Thailand reportedhaving been attacked by pirates.14 The pirate attacks on refugees contin-ued through the 1980s and the problem was not eradicated by the inter-national or national authorities but only ended when refugees stoppedmaking the journey.15

The widespread pirate attacks on refugees showed how ineffective themilitary, police, and customs authorities of states in the region wereagainst piracy, and even how involved were corrupt officials fromthese countries. Corruption amongst law-enforcement officials inChina, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam isa key reason why piracy has not been eradicated in the region, with Indo-nesian officials cited as the most notorious.16

In the 1990s the nature of piracy changed further as there were repeatedincidents of what appeared to be Chinese government vessels interceptingand detaining ships to enforce ‘customs duties’, and by 1995 the Inter-national Maritime Bureau ranked China / Hong Kong / Macau the areawith the second highest number of piracy incidents in the world(behind Indonesia).17 The surge in piracy in the South China Sea offHong Kong and Macau in the 1990s may be partly due to the focus ofthe Chinese government on spending on economic infrastructure, with

14 PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS

less funding available for the military and customs authorities during thatperiod of rapid development.

However, piracy on the China coast has declined significantly in the2000s. From 2012 to 2016 there were only 12 actual or attemptedpirate attacks in China and 7 reported in the South China Sea.18 In con-trast, during the same period there were over 400 reported attacks in Indo-nesia, 65 in Malaysia, 33 in the Philippines, and 34 in the SingaporeStrait.19 A factor influencing this decline in attacks may be the increasingnumber of Chinese Navy and Coast Guard vessels in the South ChinaSea, which will be discussed later in this article.

The Strait of Malacca has been the most consistent trouble spot for piracyattacks in proximity to Indonesia. Piracy in the Strait has existed for hun-dreds of years but the impact has become more severe with the growingimportance of the waterway for shipment of international trade. By 2014the annual vessel traffic passing through the 1,000-kilometre MalaccaStrait was around 127,000, or 300 per day, and includes half of allglobal trade and a third of the world’s crude oil.20 The Malacca Straitis only 600 metres wide at its narrowest point and 25 metres deep at itsshallowest,21 which provides a risk concentration of vessels and geogra-phy that could be attractive for either pirates or terrorists.

Reporting of the problem and understanding of the piracy risks improvedafter the establishment in 1992 of the Piracy Reporting Centre of theInternational Maritime Bureau. High-profile pirate attacks in the 1990sand then the Al Qaida attack on the USA in 2001 resulted in increasedgovernmental attention to the risk of transportation, such as bulk carriersand oil tankers, being used for terrorist attacks.22 The growing awarenessof piracy and sometimes related terrorism risk led to new measures. In2004 the navies of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore commenced the‘Trilateral Coordinated Patrol’, although there was no reduction inpiracy perhaps because of the lack of pursuit.23 In 2005 the three govern-ments commenced joint air patrols over the Strait, and in 2006 the navaland air measures were integrated into the Malacca Strait Patrols.24 By2014 reported pirate attacks in the Strait of Malacca had declined toonly one for the year.25

However, piracy attacks in the national waters of the littoral states aremore worrying. In Indonesia there were 106 attacks in 2013, 100 in2014, 108 in 2015, and 49 in 2016.26 The International MaritimeBureau (IMB) statistics suggests that although piracy in the Strait of

PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS 15

Malacca has continued for many decades, and indeed centuries, thetargets of the pirates have changed as shipping and cargo has changed.

According to the IMB, in 2016, 195 worldwide piracy and armed robberyincidents were reported, down from 246 in 2015. However, 68 of thesewere in South East Asia and 16 in East Asia,27 Indonesia remains thehot spot with 45 vessels boarded, with 9 in Vietnamese waters and 7 inChinese waters.

Strikingly, 151 piracy incidents in 2016 involved hostages being takenand another 62 involved kidnap for ransom. Of the hostage incidents,37 were in Indonesia and 47 in Malaysia. Of the kidnappings, 10 werein Malaysia and 18 in the Philippines. Bulk carriers and tankers werethe most frequently targeted vessels. Clearly the sea lanes around Malay-sia, Indonesia, and the Philippines remain some of the most dangerous inthe world. But if global piracy has declined then why has piracy in SouthEast Asia seas increased?

The number of pirate attacks in South East Asia illustrates the relativescale of the problem, but the failure to eradicate piracy in the region isdue to geographical, economic, and political factors that have resultedin piracy being endemic in the region. Piracy has existed in the SouthChina Sea for centuries but increased since the 1970s because of thehuge increase in maritime cargo volumes, the growth of Asian economiesin the 1980s, the poverty coastal dwellers and fishermen, and the avail-ability of small arms for criminal groups since the end of the Cold War.28

The IMB data show that whilst global piracy may have declined slightly,in South East Asia it is increasing. This increase in piracy in the ‘age ofglobal terrorism’ in the busiest and most politically sensitive sea-lanes inthe world results in a complex political environment lacking internationalcooperation and with a continued failure to eradicate piracy in the region.

Piracy and terrorism in South East Asia

Piracy is defined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seaas “Any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation,committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a privateship or a private aircraft”.29 This seems to exclude acts committed for pol-itical ends. However, political acts of violence at sea have been occurringin the Philippines and Indonesia and could otherwise be defined as or

16 PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS

related to terrorism. In such circumstances this seems to be piracy for thepurposes of terrorism.

There are connections between piracy and terrorism in parts of South EastAsia. In the Philippines the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), theMoro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the related Abu Sayyaf Group(ASG), and the New Peoples’ Army (NPA) have engaged in land-based terrorism as well as also robbery and extortion at sea to raisefunds.30 Although these groups may have committed these crimes atsea to raise money for their political cause, these acts may not alwaysbe classified as piracy.

The seas around the Sulu archipelago of the Philippines have been called“the most dangerous maritime area in the world”.31 The area is remotefrom the government centre of the Philippines and law enforcement islimited, people are relatively poor compared to those on the northern Phi-lippines island of Luzon, and piracy has been a part of the way of life forcoastal dwellers for centuries.

There is consequently a blurred distinction between piracy and terrorismin these areas. The ASG went furthest with maritime terrorism in 2004when they carried out a bomb attack on the MV Superferry 14 resultingin the death of 116 people and injuries to at least 300 others.32 Indeed, theASG formation is rooted in maritime terror and the group was reportedlyattributed with the bombing of the MV Doulos, a Christian missionaryship, in Zamboanga port in Mindanao, the Philippines, in 1991.33

The ASG attacks on the MV Superferry and the MV Doulos were clearacts of maritime terrorism, but raise wider questions regarding whethermaritime terrorists are also pirates because of the tactics they haveadopted. The reverse question can be asked, given the extreme levelsof violence carried out by some pirates, whether their piratical actsshould be regarded as terror, intended to cause vessel crews to stoptheir ships and behave compliantly or otherwise face extreme violence.

In Indonesia the ‘Gerakan Aceh Merdeka’ (GAM) is suspected to haveengaged in piracy to raise funds to support their political cause of inde-pendence for Aceh from Indonesia.34 However, given the location ofAceh on the northern tip of Sumatra and the lack of a confirmed blue-water naval capability, any violent acts by GAM against shipping incoastal ‘brown water’ areas are likely to usually be within Indonesian

PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS 17

territorial waters and hence not subject to the United Nations Conventionon the Law of the Sea legal definition of piracy.

Whether members of GAM have engaged in piracy to support terrorismor only to support their families is hard to establish. In August 2003, thetanker ‘Penrider’ was hijacked and taken to Indonesian waters by 14pirates carrying automatic assault rifles and speaking the Acehneselanguage, who held crew members hostage in jungle hideouts.35

GAM has denied any involvement in piracy and stated that the organis-ation is campaigning for freedom, but the motive of needing to raisemoney from piracy to fund their separatist campaign against the Indone-sian military is apparent.36 However, such was the extent of piracy in theStrait of Malacca in the early 2000s that the sudden cessation followingthe tsunami in 2004 led many observers to suggest that pirates were oper-ating from Aceh.37

Confusion between piracy and terrorism can arise when both are seen inthe same area. GAM and pirates operate in the Strait of Malacca aroundnorthern Sumatra. ASG and MNLF operate in the Sulu and Celebes Seasaround western Mindanao. Police and military agencies responding to theviolent attacks carried out by these groups can easily confuse whether theactivity is driven by terrorist or piratical objectives and intent.38

Terrorism and piracy around the Philippines and in the neighbouringwaters of other countries may worsen as ‘ISIS’ ideology establishesitself and is claimed by other Islamist terror groups. The Philippines mili-tary has been battling ‘Maute-ISIS’ in the city of Marawi in Mindanaosince May 2017 after the army took action against the head of a militiathat had pledged loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The result-ing battle has involved fighters from the ‘Maute Group’, also known asthe ‘Islamic State of Lanao’, former Moro Islamic Liberation Front guer-rillas, and some foreign fighters led by Abdullah Maute, the allegedfounder of a Dawlah Islamiya, or Islamic State based in Lanao del Sur,Mindanao.39 Elements of these groups have also worked with theJemaah Islamiyah, affiliated to Al Qaida, and by establishing cooperationacross the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia they pose a threat to mar-itime security in the region.

The US and Philippines militaries seem to have taken this threatseriously. On 1 July 2017, the US Navy Littoral Combat Ship USS Cor-onado (LCS 4) and the Philippines Navy Del Pilar Class Frigate BRP

18 PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS

Ramon Alcaraz conducted joint patrols in the Sulu Sea “to detect anddeter threats to maritime security”.40 The Sulu and Celebes Seas formthe boundary between the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, provid-ing maritime routes for travel by Muslims from Mindanao, Borneo, andSulawesi. The fighting between Philippines government forces and Isla-mist factions in Marawi has highlighted why the maritime routes betweenthese countries are an important conduit for the authorities to close tomilitants in order to prevent the movement of fighters and weapons.

Combatting piracy – pax sinica?

There are a variety of measures being taken to prevent, deter, and combatpiracy in the South China Sea. The IMB leads efforts to increase knowl-edge and understanding of the piracy problem and hence develop aware-ness of how to prevent attacks. The IMB reports of piracy and armedrobbery data are a key intelligence resource to enable shipping companiesto strengthen their security. Numerous private security companies haveoperated in South East Asia, usually based in Singapore, for severaldecades and provide security to shipping companies.41

The services provided by these security companies for anti-piracy includerisk analysis, security plans, tracking commercial vessels, protectingfishing grounds, guarding offshore energy installations, security officerson board vessels, and security training of crews.42 Security measuressuch as these are certainly effective for those vessels on which they areemployed but not all shipping companies can afford to engage all ofthese security measures on all of their vessels and hence there remain vul-nerable ships that are prey to pirates.

Cooperation between the littoral states to provide security has beenimproving since the early 2000s. The ‘Regional Cooperation Agreementon Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia’(‘ReCAAP’) commenced in 2004 and now has 20 states as contractingparties, who cooperate to exchange information about piracy andarmed-robbery incidents, and facilitate capacity-building.43 Singapore,Malaysia, and Indonesia have operated joint naval and air patrols of theStrait of Malacca since 2004.

However, the littoral states in the South China Sea as well as the stateswhose goods are shipped through the region have strong political self-interests that at times preclude security cooperation. Most of the pirate

PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS 19

attacks are occurring on ships passing across geopolitically importantseas that are currently the focus of conflicting territorial claims betweenthe littoral states: these areas hold increasing reserves of newly discov-ered oil and gas, and are a passageway for commodities vital for the econ-omies of both China and Japan.

The People’s Republic of China claims sovereignty over most of theSouth China Sea, expressed by a ‘nine dash line’ that has led to contin-ued diplomatic conflict with the littoral states of Brunei, Indonesia,Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam. TheChinese government has repeatedly expressed this claim by stating“China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea Islands(the Dongsha Islands, the Xisha Islands, the Zhongsha Islands and theNansha Islands) and the adjacent waters”.44 Such an intractable disputedoes not seem to create an environment in which the states borderingthe South China Sea can cooperate against piracy or indeed maritimeterrorism.

History has shown that a strong naval power tends to be a catalyst foreffective action against piracy, such as the US Navy against theBarbary Coast pirates in the 19th century or the British Navy againstthe South China Coast pirates in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.It is an open question as to whether the Chinese Navy will take a roleagainst piracy in the South China Seas in the 21st century, but there areindicators that this is possible.

Chinese People’s Armed Police officers have been conducting jointarmed patrols with police from Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand along theMekong River outside of the Chinese border since 2011.45 Vesselsfrom the China Border Police are used for the joint patrols, which byDecember 2016 reportedly numbered 53 such operations involvingseven vessels and 190 law-enforcement officers.46 This multi-jurisdictionlaw-enforcement effort is an outcome of the geostrategic position of theMekong River as it runs through China, Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand,and the lawlessness that has prevailed along these borders.

The Mekong River forms a tri-border point with China, Myanmar, andLaos, but also flows through Thailand, Cambodia, and eventuallyVietnam into the South China Sea. The Mekong facilitates tradeamongst these South East Asian countries, and also allows them accessto the South China Sea to ship goods farther afield. Piracy against rivervessels hinders the expansion of the links between the landlocked

20 PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS

Yunnan Province of China and South East Asia, and it is hence in China’sinterests to prevent this crime. A tipping point for the Chinese authoritiescame in October 2011 when 13 Chinese nationals on a vessel that was

Figure 1 South China Sea Map. The red-dotted line shows the furthest extent of China’sisland claims (Source: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/South-China-Sea-political-map.htm)

PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS 21

reportedly carrying methamphetamine pills were killed on a stretch of theMekong River in Thailand.47

Whether the attack was piracy or drug-trafficking-related murder, theoutcome was an extension of enforcement activity by Chinese authorities.Naw Kham, the Burmese national alleged to have risen through the ranksof the Mong Tai Army of the infamous drug lord Khun Sa, has beendescribed as a “freshwater pirate”48 and his activity led to the Chineseauthorities projecting their power with People’s Armed Police patrollingthe Mekong River through sovereign territory of Laos, Myanmar, andThailand.

Whilst the action by the People’s Armed Police makes popular televisionand newspaper reporting in China, the deployment of paramilitary forcesoutside of the Chinese border on the Mekong River for six years showsthe extent of Chinese economic interests in South East Asia. China is pro-jecting armed force to combat pirates because it has an economic interestin doing so and it has the power to do so. The deployment of People’sArmed Police patrols has created a pax sinica on the Mekong River,and raises the question of whether the Chinese authorities have sufficientinterests to extend this to the South China Sea.

The decline of piracy on the China coast in the 2000s is likely to berelated to the growth of the Chinese Navy and increased projection ofauthority. The United States Office of Naval Intelligence, in an assess-ment of the Peoples Liberation Army Navy published in 2015, commentsthat “With a heavy reliance on maritime commerce, Beijing now has avested interest in ensuring the security of international trade”.49 Accord-ing to the report, the PLA Navy has undergone significant expansion ofthe number of vessels as well as improvements to technology in multipleclasses of warships and in addition by 2015 had 205 maritime law-enfor-cement vessels.50 The growth of Chinese naval power is partly intendedto secure the South China and surrounding seas for maritime commerce toand from China, and has coincided in a reduction in piracy on the SouthChina Coast.

The possibility of Chinese Navy patrols closer to the shores of Indonesia,Malaysia, and the Philippines has been raised. In January 2017, PresidentDuterte of the Philippines stated publicly that he “asked China if they canpatrol the international waters without necessarily intruding into the ter-ritorial waters of countries”.51 The Sulu Sea is a long way from the SouthChina Coast, but the PLA Navy has engaged in counter-piracy patrols in

22 PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS

the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia, which is a far greater distancethan Mindanao.

Amongst the Asian nations competing for sovereignty in the South ChinaSea, only China has the economic wealth and military strength to projectnaval power beyond the South China Coast to the fringes of Sumatra,Borneo, and Mindanao. Doing so by force without the consent of Indo-nesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines would surely result in conflict, butthe example of the joint patrols on the Mekong River shows that thereare mutual economic interests that could lead to the littoral statescoming to an accommodation with China to build a maritime paxsinica in the region. This would be a means of suppressing piracyacross the region, but raises the question of what the response of theUS Government would be to the PLA Navy operating at the ‘FirstIsland Chain’.

Conclusion

In the complex political environment of the South China Sea tacticalmeasures to prevent and discourage piracy are not enough to eradicatethe problem. There are deep historical roots of piracy around the coastsof China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Unlike otherregions prone to piracy there has never been a continually dominantnaval power in the region that can project power against piracy both atsea and on land across the region to effectively interdict the activity.The political and territorial rivalries in the region are a continued restric-tion on such action by a single state or multiple littoral states in collabor-ation. The worst-case scenario is for further cooperation between Islamistterrorist groups in the region and their use of piracy to raise funds or justto spread terror. The days of piracy in the South China Sea are far fromover, but the intriguing possibility for improved maritime security in theAsian seas is whether the extension of Chinese naval power will bring apax sinica in relation to piracy.

NOTES

1. Carolin Liss, The roots of piracy in Southeast Asia, APSNet Policy Forum, 22October 2007, http://nautilus.org/apsnet/the-roots-of-piracy-in-southeast-asia/.

2. Institute for Policy Analysis and Conflict, Pro-ISIS Groups in Mindanao and theirlinks to Indonesia and Malaysia, 25 October 2015, http://www.

PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS 23

understandingconflict.org/en/conflict/read/56/Pro-ISIS-Groups-in-Mindanao-and-Their-Links-to-Indonesia-and-Malaysia).

3. Robert J. Anthony, ‘The Shadowy World of the Greater China Seas’, in ElusivePirates, Pervasive Smugglers: Violence and Clandestine Trade in the GreaterChina Seas. Hong Kong University Press, 2010.

4. Robert F. Turner, ‘President Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates’, in BruceA. Elleman, Andrew Forbes and David Rosenberg (Eds.), Piracy and MaritimeCrime – Historical and Modern Case Studies. Newport, RI: Naval War CollegePress, 2010, p. 167.

5. Andrew Lambert, ‘The Limits of Naval Power – The Merchant Brig Three Sisters,Riff Pirates, and British Battleships’, in Piracy and Maritime Crime –Historical andModern Case Studies, pp. 173–188.

6. Bruce A. Elleman, ‘The Taiping Rebellion, Piracy, and the Arrow War’, in Piracyand Maritime Crime – Historical and Modern Case Studies, pp. 52 and 61.

7. Charles W. Koburger Jr., ‘Selamat Datang, Kapitan – Post World War II Piracy inthe South China Sea’, in Piracy and Maritime Crime – Historical and Modern CaseStudies, p. 65.

8. Iain Ward, Sui Geng – The Hong Kong Marine Police, 1984-1950, p. 89.9. Ibid., p. 90.10. Ibid., p. 10611. Ibid., p. 103.12. Ibid., p. 107.13. Charles W. Koburger Jr., ‘Selamat Datang, Kapitan – Post World War II Piracy in

the South China Sea’, in Piracy and Maritime Crime – Historical and Modern CaseStudies, p. 67.

14. New York Times, ‘Pirate Attacks on Vietnamese Refugees Fall Sharply’, 7 June1987, http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/07/world/pirate-attacks-on-vietnam-refugees-fall-sharply.html.

15. Martin N. Murphy, Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money – Piracy and MaritimeTerrorism in the Modern World. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, p. 41.

16. Ibid., p. 42.17. Ibid., p. 93.18. ICC International Maritime Bureau, Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships –

Report for the period 1 January – 31 December 2016.19. Ibid.20. The Nippon Foundation, A Cooperative Framework for Maintaining Safety in the

Straits of Malacca and Singapore, Nippon Foundation, http://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/en/what/spotlight/ocean_outlook/story4/.

21. Ibid.22. Catherine Zara Raymond, ‘Piracy and Armed Robbery in the Malacca Strait’, in

Piracy and Maritime Crime – Historical and Modern Case Studies, p. 110.23. Ibid., p. 114.24. Ibid., p. 115.25. ICC International Maritime Bureau, Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships –

Report for the period 1 January – 31 December 2016.

24 PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS

26. Ibid.27. International Chamber of Commerce, ‘Sea Kidnappings Rise in 2016 Despite Plum-

meting Global Piracy’, 10 January 2017, https://iccwbo.org/media-wall/news-speeches/imb-report-sea-kidnappings-rise-2016-despite-plummeting-global-piracy/.)

28. Graham Gerard Ong-Webb, ‘Piracy in Maritime Asia’, in Peter Lehr (Ed.), Violenceat Sea: Piracy in the Age of Global Terrorism. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007, p. 73.

29. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Definition of Piracy, Article 101,http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/closindx.htm,

30. Martin N. Murphy, Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money – Piracy and MaritimeTerrorism in the Modern World, p. 79.

31. Stefan Ekbert, in Martin N. Murphy (Ed.), Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money –Piracy and Maritime Terrorism in the Modern World, p. 76.

32. Rommel C. Banloi, ‘The Abu Sayyaf Group: Threat of Maritime Piracy and Terror-ism’, in Violence at Sea – Piracy in the Age of Global Terrorism, p. 121.

33. Ibid., p. 124.34. Jeffrey Chen, ‘The Emerging Nexus between Piracy and Maritime Terrorism in

Southeast Asia Waters: A Case Study on the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM)’, inViolence at Sea – Piracy in the Age of Global Terrorism, p. 152.

35. BBC News, Aceh Rebels Blamed for Piracy, 8 September 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3090136.stm.

36. Ibid.37. Financial Times, ‘Piracy in Aceh Waters Ceases after Tsunami’, 6 January 2005,

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/51378aae-5fd6-11d9-bd2f-00000e2511c8.html#axzz3QGhdjusn.

38. Martin N. Murphy, Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money – Piracy and MaritimeTerrorism in the Modern World, p. 161.

39. The Maritime Executive, ‘Philippines Terror Attack Threatens ASEAN MaritimeSecurity’, 29 May 2017. http://maritime-executive.com/editorials/philippines-terror-attack-threatens-asean-maritime-security).

40. US Embassy in the Philippines, U.S. and Philippine Navies Complete CoordinatedPatrol in Southern Sulu Sea, 1 July 2017, https://ph.usembassy.gov/us-ph-navies-complete-coordinated-patrol-southern-sulu-sea/.

41. Carolin Liss, The Privatisation of Maritime Security – Maritime Security in South-east Asia: Between a Rock and a Hard place?, Murdoch University, February 2007,p. 12.

42. Ibid.43. ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre, http://www.recaap.org,44. China Daily, ‘China’s Position Paper on the South China Sea’, 7 December 2014,

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-12/07/content_19037946_2.htm.45. The State Council of the Peoples Republic of China, China and 3 countries launch

patrol along the Mekong River, 18 March 2015, http://english.gov.cn/news/photos/2015/03/18/content_281475073556405.htm.)

46. Xinhuanet, ‘New Joint Patrol Launched on Mekong River’, 20 December 2016,http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-12/20/c_135919555.htm.)

PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS 25

47. New York Times, ‘Beijing Flaunts Cross-Border Clout in Search for Drug Lord’, 4April 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/world/asia/chinas-manhunt-shows-sway-in-southeast-asia.html).

48. Reuters, ‘Special Report: In Mekong, Chinese Murders and Bloody Diplomacy’, 27January 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-special-report-mekong-idUSTRE80Q00G20120127).

49. Office of Naval Intelligence, US Navy, The PLA Navy: New Capabilities andMissions for the 21st Century, 9 April 2015, https://news.usni.org/2015/04/09/docu-ment-office-of-naval-intelligence-2015-assessment-of-chinese-peoples-liberation-army-navy.

50. Ibid.51. South China Morning Post, ‘Philippines Rodrigo Duterte asks China for help with

Sea Patrols to Combat Kidnappings’, 31 January 2017, http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/2066886/philippines-rodrigo-duterte-asks-china-help-sea-patrols. .

26 PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS