03 November 2015

Editorial: How Is Malaysia Responding to China’s South China Sea Intrusion?

By Prashanth Parameswaran

There are signs the country is mulling new measures amid Beijing’s assertiveness.

Since 2013, a Chinese coast guard vessel has been defiantly anchored in Malaysian waters at the Luconia Shoals – which Malaysia calls Beting Patinggi Ali – in a vivid demonstration of Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea (See: “Malaysia Responds to China’s South China Sea Intrusion”). The vessel is just 84 nautical miles from the coast of Sarawak, well inside Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone and on the southern end of China’s infamous nine-dash line, which covers about 90 percent of the South China Sea.

This is hardly the first time Chinese vessels have encroached into Malaysian waters – indeed, as I have stressed repeatedly, such intrusions have become both bolder and more frequent over the past few years (See: “Malaysia’s South China Sea Policy: Playing it Safe”). They not only pose a threat to the country’s South China Sea claims, but its extensive natural resource activities there as well as its territorial integrity.

Yet a point often missed is that Chinese encroachments directly affect the livelihoods of fishermen in the area too. Indeed, Malaysian fishermen claim that they have not been able to even enter the area for months, with reports of Chinese vessels chasing them away on past attempts. Over the weekend, Jamali Basri, chairman of the Miri Fishermen Association, claimed that the last time local fishermen had ventured into the area was in May.

“[O]ur fishermen were chased from the shoals by the Chinese Navy boats and now they dare not go near the place to fish,” he told the Borneo Post.

Read the full story at The Diplomat