ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on maritime security in Southeast Asia, with a special emphasis on the South China Sea disputes and sea piracy in the Strait of Malacca. While the former constitute the major and potentially most dangerous maritime territorial disputes in Southeast Asia, the latter is a form of transnational crime that continues to affect the safety and security of maritime traffic in the region. Challenges to maritime security in Southeast Asia are said, therefore, to incorporate both traditional geopolitical questions that tie together competing territorial, economic, and strategic interests as well as nontraditional security issues including the transnational criminal activities of non-state actors. The South China Sea disputes play a destabilizing role in the region and act as a major
irritant in bilateral and multilateral relations. The Spratly issue involves the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. The second territorial dispute in the South China Sea concerns the Paracel archipelago, which is claimed by the PRC, Vietnam, and Taiwan. The debates over the Spratlys and Paracels are affected by the complexity of the overlapping claims and the number of disputants involved. Moreover, while the disputed islands have little worth in themselves, the states involved expect that their control may enable them to gain exclusive jurisdictional rights over the surrounding waters as well as the resources found therein. All, with the exception of Brunei, have established a physical presence in the South China Sea. The question of sovereignty remains, then, at the core of the disputes. None of the claimants are willing to make concessions on sovereignty and their overlapping claims have not been presented to the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. This leaves the territorial issue at an impasse. Linked to sovereignty, the South China Sea question has been influenced by fisheries as well as the availability of energy resources, although the potential gas and oil reserves have remained uncertain and initial estimations have been revised to lower figures. Finally, the territorial claims have nationalist importance in the states concerned, especially in China, the Philippines, and Vietnam. A number of piracy attacks have continued to take place every year in Southeast Asia,
primarily in Indonesian waters and in the Malacca Strait. Some disagreements persist, however, on the definition of the term “piracy.” The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) defines piracy as “an act of boarding any ship with the intent to commit theft or any other crime and with the intent or capability to use force in the furtherance of that act.”1 This definition can be distinguished from the narrower approach adopted by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). According to the latter, sea piracy is a crime committed inside international waters, which includes the high seas
and the contiguous zone, and consequently, beyond the territorial jurisdiction of any country.2 The IMB definition of piracy is generally applied in the context of Southeast Asia, as most acts of piracy in the region take place in territorial waters rather than on the high seas. The problem of piracy in Southeast Asia has often been described as a threat to
regional and international economic security. Southeast Asia has several sea lines of communication (SLOCs): the Strait of Malacca, the Singapore Strait, the Sunda Strait, and the Lombok Strait. The Malacca Strait is of particular importance. It is a 550-nauticalmile-long waterway that links the Indian and Pacific Oceans and through which a quarter of the world’s trade and half of its oil passes. Traffic in the Strait has rapidly grown in the last few years as a result of increased crude shipments to China. Sea piracy, thus, represents a threat to the free and safe navigation of commercial vessels in the Strait of Malacca. Moreover, it is feared that a piracy attack on an oil super-tanker crossing the Strait could lead to an environmental disaster. Since 9/11, piracy has also been linked to the threat of maritime terrorist attacks.
