C. Uday Bhaskar

Opinion | China and India have a duty to act on Houthi threat to global shipping

While the lukewarm responses to the US-led counter-attacks are understandable, the major powers must rise above their divisions to protect a global good – safe passage for the world’s ships and their crew

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

C. Uday Bhaskar

Published: 5:30am, 17 Jan 2024

The US has carried out a second strike on Yemen to curb the Houthi rebels’ ability to attack merchant shipping – which the group has been engaged in since November, in protest at Israel’s war against Hamas.

While Washington has stressed its strikes were defensive in nature, it is possible that they could lead to an escalation of violence in the Middle East. This would not be in the global interest and major powers need to prevent such an outcome.

The Houthi movement that controls large parts of Yemen has introduced complexities into the ongoing war in Gaza – a war of reprisal Israel is prosecuting with disproportionate force against a hapless civilian population it equates with Hamas.

The Houthi rebels, until recently considered an obscure group confined to Yemen, have taken up the cause of the blighted Palestinians and begun targeting merchant ships with an Israeli connection in the Red Sea. Subsequently, even ships with no link to Israel were targeted.

This has caused a major disruption to global merchant traffic that transits the Suez Canal and enters the Indian Ocean through the Red Sea and the narrow Bab-el-Mandeb strait between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa.

About 12 per cent of global trade passes through the Bab-el-Mandeb and all the major economies of the world – particularly China, Japan and India – are dependent on the safety and stability of these waters.