Over the past few years, maritime security challenges have evolved alongside rising geopolitical competition in the world at large and the Indo-Pacific in particular. Coercion in China’s grey zones challenges the maritime order. The US and its allies are building partnerships like the QUAD, and developing nations are witnessing tensions in domains like subsea cables.
Southeast Asia, with its fifth-largest economy and third-largest population, occupies the centre of these dynamics and is paramount to their trajectory. As part of the Indo-Pacific region, Southeast Asia is the epicentre of China’s maritime power in the South China Sea, while the Malacca Straits account for at least a third of global trade. Consequently, the dynamics will have a significant impact on US interests. Norms and power balance will be shaped by the emerging regional maritime order in the Indo-Pacific.
Maritime Security in Southeast Asia and Competition in the Indo-Pacific
Intensifying competition is just the latest stage in the evolution of maritime security in Southeast Asia within the broader regional and global landscape. The 2010 and 2020s have witnessed an escalation of strategic competition, adding to a long list of difficulties Southeast Asian nations face.
US-China tensions have spilled over into the South China Sea, spotlighted dawdling intraregional conflicts and complicated geoeconomic prospects in blue economy-related domains like ports and subsea cables. On the other hand, the region also has a sweeping set of broader maritime security challenges. Many states are leading global risk metrics in areas such as marine debris, illegal fishing and increasing sea levels. A number of trends, like the flow of maritime refugees and the treatment of so-called sea nomads, have highlighted persistent problems amid the surge and fall of other trends like terrorism and piracy. Southeast Asia’s problems span across six key domains: economic, political, social, technological, legal and environmental.
Shifting Trends in Maritime Security in Southeast Asia
A combination of intensified competition and maritime security leads to several strategic dynamics that impact the calculations of critical actors.
Heightening competition has both toughened the need for and confused the dynamics of increasing state capacity. For instance, Philippine officials have revealed that the number of Chinese ships around its waters in just one single week – including the Coast Guard, navy and maritime militia have at times numbered in the hundreds. The past few years have witnessed a steady stream of capacity-building technology proposes from major countries to states such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Moreover, the diffusion of competitive dynamics into the business world has strengthened already difficult stakeholder coordination dynamics. Subsea cables are one example. Southeast Asian countries identify the risks in this domain. Governments like Vietnam have witnessed multiple cables being damaged simultaneously, and ASEAN has taken basic measures such as facilitating the permitting application process for cable restoration.
Further, the states also wrestle with more cross-sectoral and multilayered maritime challenges. Maritime cyberattacks are one example. State- and non-state maritime cyberattacks on ships and ports have surged by up to triple-digit percentages over the past few years, with one assessment indicating that a single significant coordinated attack on Asian ports could cost over $100 billion in losses.
As major powers compete more intensely, there is a greater risk of contestation inherent in the intraregional settlement of maritime disputes. A notable example is the disputes in the South China Sea, where five Southeast Asian nations (Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam) have conflicting claims against China, while Indonesia does not claim any territory. Increasing tensions between the US and China have escalated these disputes into a key flashpoint between superpowers.
However, they have also highlighted the ongoing challenges that Southeast Asian claimant states face regarding their lingering maritime disputes, which can affect relations in critical areas such as illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and regional diplomacy. For instance, Malaysia has protested against Vietnam’s island-building initiatives and the Philippines’ new maritime laws related to contested claims, despite both actions being partly motivated by responses to Chinese activities.
