On fishing encroachments, ISIS’ Daniel said Vietnamese boats were fishing illegally in Malaysian waters because fish stocks closer to home have dwindled due to pressure from Vietnam’s large-scale fishing industry.
“Our fishing is minuscule compared to them, and our waters are not patrolled because there are no assets; there’s no maritime domain awareness,” Daniel said.
“And when Malaysian coast guard vessels move to interdict, there are problems sometimes. Vietnamese fishermen have been known to be very aggressive. Some of them are armed. There have been shots fired.”
Between mid-2019 and September 2024, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) detained 598 fishing vessels, three-quarters of which were Vietnamese, Jamil said.
“Adding a more insidious security dimension, a January 2025 study … revealed that commercial fishing vessels have become conduits for smuggling endangered animal parts and human trafficking between Malaysia and Vietnam,” he said.
The study – conducted by wild cat conservation organisation Panthera, Sunway University’s Jeffrey Sachs Center, and the Zoological Society of London – found that deepening economic vulnerabilities in the fisheries sector were fuelling convergence between illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, wildlife crime and forced labour networks.
Moving forward, it would make sense for Malaysia to buy assets that could detect and share information about incursions with other ground, air and naval units, Daniel said.
“What does it mean? Hopefully acquiring more naval and air assets, manned and unmanned, that are able to talk to each other and increase our awareness and our capacity to respond,” he said.
Collin Koh, a senior fellow at RSIS’ Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, acknowledged that Malaysia faces a range of security challenges across its vast maritime zone.
But he believes Chinese pressure in the disputed waterway off Borneo “is by far the most intractable by comparison”.
Ramping up Malaysia’s security posture in the South China Sea would symbolise the Anwar administration’s fulfilment of its obligations towards the two Borneo states, amid their push for greater autonomy including in energy revenue, Koh said.
“There’s certainly the inescapable geo-economic dimension to it, and that has a lot to do with Malaysia’s offshore energy interests in its Borneo EEZs,” he added.
DRONES, RADARS AND JETS
A stronger commitment to protect these interests means the Malaysian government could try to do more with less in terms of military assets, Daniel said.
Malaysia’s military has faced well-documented procurement, maintenance and obsolescence issues, even as Putrajaya aims to raise defence spending from the current 1.1 per cent to 1.5 per cent of its GDP by 2030.
In 2024, the defence budgets of Southeast Asian countries ranged between 0.78 per cent (Indonesia) and 4.09 per cent (Myanmar) of their respective GDP.
Koh noted that in 2021, Malaysia could scramble only its old Hawk fighter jets to intercept Chinese combat aircraft flying towards Malaysian airspace off Sabah.
“Overall, the strategic orientation of the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) build-up appears to be in no small part geared towards the South China Sea, besides the pragmatic consideration about growing obsolescence across the armed forces’ array of equipment,” he said.
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