Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Middle East hostilities pose new risks to shipping around the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, while a joint communiqué warned of broader costs across the Horn of Africa.
China’s Foreign Ministry said Wang made the assessment during a meeting in Beijing on Wednesday with Djibouti Foreign Minister Abdoulkader Houssein Omar. The ministry’s readout assigned the shipping warning to Wang; the joint communiqué separately described risks from Red Sea tensions.
The communiqué said mounting tensions could harm economic activity in the Horn, with food security and energy, as well as trade and investment, among the areas exposed. It warned that maritime insecurity could worsen piracy and terrorism-related threats.
The ministers called for coastal states and their partners to coordinate against piracy under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). They also said international law protects merchant vessels’ navigation rights.
The communiqué urged outside powers to respect regional states’ sovereignty and territorial integrity and avoid force or unilateral sanctions. It called for ceasefire commitments to be honored and for diplomacy to support a lasting peace in Gaza.
China said it would work with Djibouti and other countries to ease tensions. Wang and Omar signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation under China’s Global Security Initiative, the Foreign Ministry said.
The talks came a day after Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said on Oct. 20 that discussions between Washington and Tehran were continuing and warned escalation could spread across the region. He said Qatar was consulting regional partners and hoped for an agreement as conditions on the ground worsened. An earlier effort to use a ceasefire as a basis for talks had failed before combat resumed, he said.
