These trends in regional piracy suggest that such acts may, in some areas and cases, have broader implications for regional security. However, it is also clear that discussions and cooperation between regional Asia-Pacific nations can help ensure effective crackdowns on piracy. In the Malacca and Singapore Straits area, international cooperation and specific cooperative measures between neighboring states significantly reduced piracy incidents from 1991 to 1999. 1992 was the key year in this first wave of response to piracy in the past decade. In October 1992, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) of the International Chamber of Commerce--with support from the shipping and related industries, the UN International Maritime Organization (IMO), and law enforcement agencies--established a Regional Piracy Centre (to cover all the countries east of Sri Lanka to Southeast Asia and the Far East) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to serve as an information and reporting center, and to liaise with regional law enforcement authorities (the Centre has no enforcement capabilities of its own.¹⁰) The name was subsequently changed to the Piracy Reporting Center. In the summer of 1992, Singapore and Indonesia agreed to establish direct communications links between their navies, and agreed to provide coordinated patrols of their navies to protect Singapore Strait shipping lanes against piracy, including provisions for coordinating pursuit across territorial boundaries. Also in 1992, Indonesia and Malaysia, using the longstanding Joint Border Committee mechanism for maritime cooperation (which already included joint naval and police exercises and operations in the Strait of Malacca, and procedures for regular rendezvous at sea to exchange information), agreed in December 1992 to form a joint Maritime Operation Planning Team to conduct coordinated patrols along the common borders in the Malacca Strait. (Beginning in mid- 1993, these two countries conducted joint patrol exercises in the Strait of Malacca.) As a result of these cooperative measures (as well as significant unilateral anti-piracy measures by Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia), the piracy problem in the Malacca and Singapore Straits diminished significantly between 1993 and 1999.

　

　　There is considerable scope for further cooperation in combating piracy in the Asia-Pacific region. In the Malacca and Singapore Straits area, one suggestion has been that Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia agree to establish “joint patrol areas”, where more than the territorial state would have the right to patrol, arrest, and punish for acts of piracy. In the South China Seas area, a paper prepared for the Indonesian-sponsored Fifth Workshop on Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea included a proposal for “coordination and cooperation between the navies and authorities of the region” in combating piracy and illicit drug traffic.¹¹ The Third South China Sea Workshop, in 1992, had reported that some participants “suggested that piracy could be most effectively dealt with at the national level, while others considered that a regional approach to the problem would be preferable.”¹²A meeting of the Technical Working Group on Safety of Navigation, Shipping, and Communication, held in Sabah, Malaysia, in June, 1999, suggested that Workshop participants “identify clearly their law enforcement agencies for reporting piracy acts.”¹³ In the East China Sea area. a continuation of the dialogue between the coast guard authorities of the PRC and Japan, as well as inclusion of this problem on the agenda of the PRC-Taiwan discussions on cross-straits issues (once they resume) would be useful.

　

　　The recent upsurge of piracy in the region has also led to two recent international conferences in Tokyo-- the March 28-30, 2000 “International Conference of All Maritime Related Concerns, both Governmental and Private, on Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships,” which issued the “Tokyo Appeal” call to action, and the April 27-29, 2000 “Asia Anti-Piracy Challenges 2000: Regional Conference on Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships,” of Heads of Coast Guard Agencies of 14 countries from India to Japan.¹⁴ The April governmental agreement promoted mutual cooperation against piracy/sea robbery by information exchange, reports, enhancing law enforcement activities, investigations, and support of training and technology. Although civil maritime law enforcement authorities (coast guards, marine police, port police, etc.) will continue to have the lead role in countering sea robbery in ports/territorial waters, there is clear scope for greater cooperation of naval and (in countries where they exist) coast guard forces on the high seas. Regional naval forces can also cooperate more with the Piracy Reporting Center and with neighbors on intelligence exchange on suspicious ships and on training. Another important meeting took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 13-15 November 2000, where forty Asian maritime representatives from thirteen nations met at the IMB Piracy Reporting Center. The participating countries agreed on the need for multilateral and bilateral anti-piracy measures, and regular meetings to exchange information and intelligence. Japan offered to help train required coast guard personnel at the Japan Coast Guard Academy and Training School.¹⁵

　

　　The unofficial “Track Two” Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) has a Maritime Cooperation Working Group that has met once or twice each year since 1995. In 1998, the CSCAP Maritime Cooperation Working Group provided through the CSCAP Co-Chairs to the ARF Chair the CSCAP Memorandum No. 4 on “Guidelines for Regional Maritime Cooperation.”¹⁶ Two Articles of this document are particularly relevant to our consideration of military roles in several areas:

　

　　After a joint meeting with the CSCAP Working Group on Transnational Crime in November 1999, the CSCAP Maritime Cooperation Working Group at its July 2000 Manila meeting and November 2000 Beijing meeting drafted a more detailed CSCAP Memorandum on Cooperation for Law and Order at Sea, designed to flesh out Articles 16 and 17 of the Maritime Cooperation Guidelines. This CSCAP Memorandum concluded “A specific anti-piracy agreement might be considered for the region. A first step towards such a convention may be a compilation of national legislative provisions on piracy and an audit of these laws to determine the compatibility of their scope and content...”¹⁷ Another unofficial “Track Two” organization, the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS), has also considered maritime law enforcement and anti-piracy roles in its periodic meetings of heads of Pacific navies. At the most recent WPNS meeting in November 2000 in New Zealand, the Korean Chief of Naval Operations focused on piracy and regional naval cooperation. Both the President and Chief of Naval Staff of India appealed to the thirty navies attending the International Fleet Review in Mumbai in February 2001 to cooperate in combating piracy and other crimes at sea.¹⁸

　

　　Four recent anti-piracy initiatives may be particularly promising in combating piracy. The first of these initiatives comes from various official and unofficial sources in Japan, a major shipping nation with great dependence on the seas. Those initiatives began with broad concepts of “Ocean Peacekeeping” at the October 1987 conference of the National Institute for Defense Studies, and more recently, with the 1999 proposal of the late Prime Minister Obuchi for joint coast guard anti-piracy patrols. They were then elaborated by leading security and shipping executives in articles and meetings,¹⁹ such as the recent November 2000 piracy meeting at the Okazaki Institute in Tokyo. The thrust of this initiative was to use Japanese Coast Guard (formerly “Maritime Safety Agency”) ships in joint patrols in areas of high piracy threat such as the Malacca Straits. Although regional nations were not yet politically ready to go as far as joint ship patrols with Japan, this initiative has already resulted in the November 2000 exercises and training between a Japan Coast Guard ship and ships from India and Malaysia. A second promising forum for regional anti-piracy cooperation is among the two dozen nations of the ASEAN Regional Forums (ARF).Beginning in the fall of 1998, several meetings of maritime specialists have been held in conjunction with the biannual meetings of ARF's Intersessional Working Group on Confidence-Building Measures. Cooperation in anti-piracy measures was the focus of the most recent October 2000 meeting in Mumbai.²⁰ A third promising area for anti-piracy is at the global level, through the UN's International Maritime Organization (IMO). The IMO's Maritime Safety Committee has held a series of regional sessions on piracy, and has developed two documents providing guidance to shipowners and ship operators, and recommendations to governments.²¹ This latter provides an excellent framework for regional anti-piracy cooperation, and has been incorporated in a draft Combined Operations Manual for Regional Non-Defense Maritime Security developed by the U.S. Coast Guard Fourteenth District Commander in Hawaii and presented at the Fourth Asia-Pacific Heads of Maritime Safety Agencies Forum in Singapore in March 2000. A fourth promising area in combating piracy involves technology. An improved version of the Shiploc device, a relatively inexpensive satellite tracking beacon which allows regular reports to shipowners of their ships' positions, Is now available and increasingly used.²²

　

　　A major new US government interagency working group report succinctly identified how maritime piracy “threatens the security of some of the world's most important sea lanes as well as the safe and orderly flow of international maritime commerce. Piracy raises insurance rates, restricts free trade, increases tensions between the affected littoral states, their neighbors, and the countries whose flagged ships are attacked or hijacked. This criminal activity also has the potential to cause enormous damage to the sea and shorelines when ships carrying environmentally hazardous cargoes are targeted. Pirates endanger navigation by leaving vessels, including fully laden tankers, under way and not in command, increasing the risk of collision or grounding. According to data made available by the US Coast Guard, direct financial losses incurred as a result of high-seas piracy are estimated at about $450 million per year'.²³ The seriousness of the regional piracy threat means that military (and civil) maritime forces should anticipate increased attention to anti-piracy roles in the region, as long as the current upsurge in attacks exists.