ABSTRACT
Piracy is a menace as old as the earliest records of man’s venturing out on the sea. It is a security threat that is certainly well known in Asia, where pirates have been active throughout history along the coast of China and in the seas off Southeast Asia. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, international attention was drawn to pirates who preyed on the “boat people,” refugees escaping from Vietnam after the war. Since then, there has been an upsurge in worldwide piracy, with most incidents occurring in Asian waters.
