‘If our national interest — the oil and gas platforms — is disrupted or affected physically, then that will be the red line,’ Malaysian Defense Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin told The Japan Times in an interview on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore last week.
The epicenter of this friction is the Petronas-operated Kasawari gas field, located roughly 200 kilometers off Bintulu, Sarawak region, in the disputed South China Sea, where a regular China Coast Guard presence has been reported within Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Beijing, he said, has been applying a different set of tactics against each claimant state, including Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. For Kuala Lumpur, Beijing’s actions in Malaysia’s EEZ have yet to cross a certain threshold, Khaled said, unlike in waters contested with the Philippines where Chinese vessels have used water cannons and been involved in highly publicized confrontations.
Given the tense regional situation, Khaled signaled appreciation of Japan’s efforts to enhance Malaysia’s maritime domain awareness, particularly through Tokyo’s military aid program, known as official security assistance.
Malaysia has been an OSA recipient since the program’s launch three years ago, with Tokyo providing funds for a variety of equipment ranging from drones and rescue boats to a naval diving support vessel and advanced monitoring systems, the latter of which are specifically designed to help Malaysia detect and track underwater threats.
Defense ties with Tokyo are also being institutionalized through frameworks such as Japan’s One Cooperative Effort Among Nations (OCEAN) and the Japan-ASEAN Ministerial Initiative for Enhanced Defense Cooperation.