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Why Old Friends China, Malaysia Suddenly Disagree over Tract of Sea

Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI, TAIWAN - China and Malaysia, old friends with a complex trade
   and investment relationship, are disagreeing over Malaysia's rights to
   extend sovereignty into part of a disputed sea that's rich in fossil
   fuel reserves.

   On Dec.12, the Southeast Asian nation submitted documentation to the
   U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf about plans to
   extend its rights over the South China Sea beyond 370 kilometers from
   its baselines. The documentation, linked to a related application that
   Malaysia and Vietnam made 10 years ago, met with opposition from
   China's U.N. mission. China claims about 90% of the sea.

   The government of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is
   reviewing the country's rights offshore with an eye toward asserting
   any that involve Beijing because other countries are resisting Chinese
   expansion now too, analysts say. The United States particularly opposes
   China's maritime expansion and, to that end, gives military support to
   Chinese rivals in Asia.

   Malaysia's challenge, although it doesn't mention China by name, could
   eventually tease out more aid from Beijing while expanding its foothold
   in a contested sea where other countries have made gains in the past.

   "They're looking at all this really hard-core pressure against the
   Chinese and seeing it's a potential strategic window to probably
   exploit more financial aid, more development aid from China," said
   Stephen Nagy, senior associate politics and international studies
   professor at International Christian University in Tokyo.

   "They're exerting the pressure at the right time, understanding it's in
   line with the other states in the region rather than being an outlier,"
   he said.

   Old friends

   Malaysia's former prime minister, Najib Razak, whose coalition lost
   parliamentary elections in 2018 to Mahathir's camp, seldom criticized
   China and instead accepted Chinese funding for domestic infrastructure
   projects despite fears among Malaysians about too much Chinese economic
   influence.

   As of mid-2018, Malaysia had racked up about $34 billion in loans for
   projects under the Belt and Road Initiative, China's $1 trillion
   program to build trade-related infrastructure in nearly 70 countries
   extending into Europe. In 2017, China contributed 7% of the total $13.6
   billion that Malaysia received from other countries.

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