IT is timely that Malaysia revisit its interests in the South China Sea, including settling the outstanding maritime boundaries with immediate neighbours.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the architect of Malaysia’s policy in the South China Sea (SCS), where we now occupy five features, including Layang-Layang (formerly Swallow Reef), some 200 nautical miles from our shores.
Malaysia’s quest for an extended maritime space began in 1977 during the time of Tun Hussein Onn when a group of military and civil engineers was sent to survey the area beyond its territorial sea. Two years later (1979), and a decade after Indonesia and Malaysia agreed on the boundaries of their respective continental shelves, Malaysia enacted a map showing the agreed limits of the continental shelf with Indonesia off the east coast of Malaysia, in the Straits of Malacca and off Tanjung Datu, Sarawak.
It was during Dr Mahathir’s time that the Royal Malaysian Navy was deployed to occupy certain features at sea, including building a resort on Layang-Layang. What began as a policy to show presence has today developed into military outposts which, under normal circumstances cannot be easily defended because of their distance from our bases in Sabah.
Layang-Layang is approximately 200 nautical miles from Labuan. In case of an emergency at Layang-Layang, it takes about 10 hours for a naval ship to arrive with reinforcements from Kota Kinabalu. By then, the battle would have been lost!
Dr Mahathir was probably concerned with the state of geopolitics then. A weak China was on the move. It seized the Parcels in December 1974 from South Vietnam probably with a smiling nod from the retreating Americans. I do not think, in hindsight, that Dr Mahathir did it to forestall China’s southward move.
Since 2012, China has transformed the Spratlys into a fortified military zone complete with sophisticated air defence systems to the chagrin of Americans returning to the area under the guise of the Freedom of Navigation Programme. Besides, if Malaysia made no effort to convert mere presence into military outposts, other powers like China, Vietnam and the Philippines would have probably occupied them.
Uppermost in Dr Mahathir’s policy in the SCS then were commerce and economics. Those familiar with the region would know that most of our natural gas and oil comes from the Laconia shoals. Moreover, the area is an important commercial sea route, referred to among military strategists as the sea-lanes-of-communication (SLOC).
Erroneously referred to as the New Map (Peta Baru), the accuracy of the 1979 map was contested by many. After years of failed negotiations, Malaysia and Indonesia settled the disputed case on the ownership of Ligitan and Sipadan in 2003 at the International Court of Justice, which awarded the islands to Malaysia.
In 2008, the ICJ decided that Singapore owns Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Putih. In both cases, the ICJ was not asked to delimit their respective boundaries. Hence, the current negotiations between the respective parties to determine, for example, who owns a low tide elevation feature known as the South Ledge, off Pedra Branca.
Similarly, the discussion to determine the maritime boundary in the Celebes Sea is ongoing. Malaysia has not settled its maritime limits with Indonesia off Ligitan and Sipadan. There are other outstanding maritime boundaries between the two close neighbours affecting mainly the divisions of their Exclusive Economic Zones.
Hence, it was welcome news when it was reported on July 24 that Malaysia and Indonesia have agreed to expedite the delineation process of land and sea borders of both countries. Both countries have been meeting since 2005 to delineate the remaining maritime boundaries without much success.
Thailand and Vietnam have agreed to temporarily settle the boundary overlap with Malaysia by agreeing to jointly explore and produce the mineral resources, especially oil and gas in the disputed areas. All three countries have long started to reap economic benefits from these joint fields. However, in both cases, no delimitation of our boundaries had been agreed to.
The British contested the 1979 map and protested on behalf of Brunei, which became independent in 1984. Despite a number of meetings at the highest level, mainly during Dr Mahathir’s time, there was no agreement on the maritime boundary with Brunei. However, in March 2009, Malaysia and Brunei agreed on, in a Letter of Exchange, approved by the cabinet in February 2011, “a final and permanent sea boundary”.
Malaysia still has to settle the maritime boundaries with the Philippines, aside from Manila’s claim to a portion of Sabah, the territory that Brunei gave to the Sultan of Sulu. For example, in 1978, Malaysia occupied Commodore Reef and included it in the 1979 map. The Filipinos have reoccupied the reef since 1978. The ownership of this feature needs to be settled soon to avoid further skirmishes.
With Vietnam, apart from the agreement on the joint development zone referred to earlier, Malaysia has yet to settle the status of Amboyna Cay, which it occupied very briefly in 1978. Today, the Vietnamese are reportedly developing the feature into a resort like Malaysia did at Layang-Layang.
In light of the current geopolitical environment, as Dr Mahathir revisits his 1979 policy in the SCS, perhaps, he could spare some moments to think of how to engage China in a balanced way that could help strengthen the security architecture for a more predictable maritime order in the SCS.
However, Dr Mahathir must not be bogged down with the problem in the SCS. Instead, he should take a broader and long-term view of China as the strongest military neighbour that can offer Malaysians economic and cultural benefits.
BA Hamzah is a lecturer with the Department of Strategic Studies, National Defence University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. He is also an adjunct research professor, National Institute of South China Sea Studies, Haikou, China