“They can only escalate the tension and it’ll not guarantee or maintain the safe passage of the commercial vessels,” Fu Cong said in an interview with Bloomberg. “It’ll even make the passage more dangerous.”
US Central Command forces conducted military strikes Wednesday against two Houthi anti-ship missiles, the latest in a series of efforts to diminish the group’s ability disrupt trade.
Hundreds of vessel operators that cross the Red Sea to access the Suez Canal as they move cargo between Asia, the US and Europe are avoiding the shortcut and taking the longer southern route around Africa.
It’s a massive diversion that’s delaying delivery of billions of dollars in goods, adding to costs and carbon emissions, and fueling fears of broader economic fallout, according to today’s Bloomberg Big Take.
As the US and UK naval operations continue, the EU is moving ahead with its own plans to established a naval operation in the Red Sea to protect commercial shipping, but it’s still working out the details.
Fu, who is China’s top envoy in Brussels, said the Houthi attacks are a spillover from the Gaza crisis, where Israel has conducted its own military operations against Hamas militants who attacked, kidnapped and killed Israeli citizens on October 07, 2023.
Fu urged the international community, and the US in particular, to exercise more leverage or pressure on the Israeli authorities to stop the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and in particular the civilians.
“Common sense will tell us that by escalating the tension, you will only aggravate the situation and you cannot resolve the problem with the approach that the US and UK are taking,” Fu said.
Courtesy: Bloomberg
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