Video on Protecting Shipping in the Red Sea

 The What is Going on With Shipping? channel posted on YouTube on 14 June 2024 a 21-minute video titled "Whose Prosperity Are We Guarding?"

Houthi missile and drone attacks from Yemen aimed at international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden have driven up the cost of war risk insurance even if they have had minimal success in actually hitting ships.  They have also caused a significant reduction in the passage of ships through the Suez Canal and Red Sea.  At the same time, the number of American and European navy vessels protecting shipping through the Red Sea is down.  

Most of the ships still navigating these waters are associated with China, Russia, Iran, and Global South countries. This raises the question as to who should be providing the protection and the most effective way to do it. The author of the video suggests it is time to institute convoy operations for those ships passing through the Red Sea whose owners are willing to pay a fee for the service.  At the moment, Western navies are providing protection for very few ships that have any connection with Western countries.    

China's Strategic Shift Towards the Middle East and Western Indian Ocean

Christina Lin, visiting scholar at the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Irvine, published in the Spring 2013 issue of Middle East Review of International Affairs an article titled "China's Strategic Shift Toward the Region of the Four Seas: The Middle Kingdom Arrives in the Middle East." 

The author argues that China is aligning with states that have problematic relations with West and are also geo-strategically placed on the littoral of the "Four Seas"--the Caspian Sea, Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and Arabian Sea/Persian Gulf.  She adds that China's pivot to this area threatens to outflank the citadel of American geo-strategies in the region.