SHIJIAZHUANG - In the pirate-infested waters off the Somali coast, China has so far rescued 26 ships and escorted 3,736 others, a senior defense official announced on Tuesday.

"More and more foreign ships have joined Chinese-led convoys," said Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, the senior officer of the Multinational Cooperation of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Ministry of National Defense.

Piracy is a focus in the discussions of the forum, which is centered on capacity building of armed forces in tackling non-traditional security threats.

More than 20 defense officials from China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the Associations of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are attending the forum organized by the Ministry of Defense in Shijiazhuang Army Command College (SACC) of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).

"Non-traditional security threats, including natural disasters, terrorism, piracy, public (health pandemics), have been growing in recent years, severely affecting regional security and peaceful development," said Zhan Yu, president of the college, in his keynote speech.

Zhan said the forum is aimed at enhancing mutual trust and cooperation among the ASEAN Plus Three countries, while exploring ways of improving multilateral capabilities to deal with non-traditional security threats.

"No matter how advanced" the weaponry, Senior Colonel Guo Xinyuan, chief of the Training Department of SACC, told China Daily, failure to build sufficient command capability will render abilities to counter security threats "useless".

Guo said the forum has been attended by far more defense officials and commanding officers, and each time the participants are different.

The nations "lack a stable coordination and communication mechanism - like those at the level of defense ministers or foreign ministers," Guo said.

"We actually need such a mechanism to continue to develop the forum," Guo said.

The forum, he added, aims to grow into a research and training platform for the armed forces of 10+3 countries' to cooperate on tackling non-traditional threats.

The first ASEAN Plus Three forum on non-traditional security of armed forces was held last year, which was evolved from two ASEAN Plus Three symposiums on disaster relief by the armed forces in 2007 and 2008.

Senior Colonel Vu Van Khanh, a researcher at the Institute for Military Strategy of the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense, said his country fully supports the forum, and will make concerted efforts with other participants to identify effective solutions to respond to non-traditional security challenges to ensure regional security, stability and prosperity.

This forum coincides with the 1st ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting being held in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, on which tackling the non-traditional security threats is also a key topic.

"With the promotion of the high-level defense dialogues and cooperation mechanisms, the cooperation in tackling non-traditional threats in the Asia-Pacific region will be further deepened," Zhou said.