Hormuz blockade stirs tension over Straits of Malacca

 The straits between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore carries roughly 40% of global trade, including the bulk of oil flows from the Middle East to Asian powerhouses.

The Straits of Malacca links the Indian and Pacific Oceans through a channel just 2.7km at its tightest point, more than 10 times narrower than Hormuz. (Gambar AFP)

KUALA LUMPUR:

 The Iranian and US blockades of the Strait of Hormuz are reviving anxiety over the fate of Asia’s most crucial strategic bottleneck.

The Straits of Malacca between Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore links the Indian and Pacific Oceans through a channel just 2.7km at its tightest point, more than 10 times narrower than Hormuz.

It carries roughly 40% of global trade, including the bulk of oil flows from the Middle East to Asian economic powerhouses including China, Japan and South Korea.

Patrolled by the US navy’s Seventh Fleet, it has long been identified by China’s leaders as a vulnerability in a war scenario, with the “Malacca Dilemma” popularised during the presidency of Hu Jintao in the early 2000s.

The picture is further complicated by competing territorial claims, China’s increased ability to project military power beyond its shores, and the unpredictability of US president Donald Trump.

In announcing his blockade, Trump said he instructed the US navy to interdict every vessel in international waters that has paid a toll to Iran.

While it appears so far that few ships are getting through, the seas in and around the Straits of Malacca have been a key area where Iran’s dark fleet has transferred oil to other vessels to disguise sales to countries in Asia, mostly China.

“Though I wouldn’t point to any clear and present danger now existing for the Straits of Malacca, anyone worried about the weaponisation of maritime chokepoints should be thinking ahead of how to manage its geopolitical vulnerabilities,” said Yap Chuin Wei, programme director of international trade research at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore.

“What seems unthinkable today should not be taken as an immutable given.”

As Hormuz has closed in recent weeks, tensions have grown in Southeast Asia.

Singapore has strongly opposed negotiating with Iran to pay tolls in Hormuz, Malaysia has defended its talks with the Islamic republic, and Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto has touted his nation’s proximity to the Straits of Malacca as a source of its geopolitical strength while deepening military cooperation with the US.

“Do we realise how important Indonesia is? How strategic and key our position is?” Prabowo said while addressing Indonesian officials last week, underscoring that roughly 70% of East Asia’s energy and trade passes through Indonesian waters, including the Straits of Malacca.

“We must understand that we are always the focus of the world’s attention.”

Shortly afterward, Indonesia’s defence ministry confirmed it was weighing a proposal from the Trump administration that could allow US military overflights through Indonesian airspace. That sparked a debate within the country’s military establishment.

Arm Oke Kistiyanto, a colonel in Indonesia’s armed forces, published a lengthy assessment on a military website suggesting that an overflight deal could pull the nation into regional contingencies beyond its control while posing an “entrapment risk”.

“Airspace is a core domain of state sovereignty,” he wrote. “When access to that domain is requested by a major power, what is at stake is not only the passage permit, but also the strategic significance of that permit: who gains operational benefits, how other countries interpret it, and whether the decision is consistent with Indonesia’s foreign policy orientation.”

That assessment “reflects internal resistance”, said Anastasia Febiola S, an Indonesian defence expert and country manager of Mirage Defence for Indonesia.

“For Indonesia it is about reputation, if not pride – the respect of other countries towards Indonesia’s sovereign rights and interests.”

One Indonesian government official with knowledge of defence matters, who requested anonymity to speak about sensitive issues, said the new deal with the US was more about scaling up existing cooperation than any strategic shift.

Indonesia’s priority is keeping the straits stable and conflict-free, and there’s no appetite to be seen as facilitating US pressure on other countries, the official said.

In a statement, a spokesman for Indonesia’s defence ministry said the US agreement would open up “more targeted opportunities in defence modernisation, capacity building, professional military education and training, as well as exercises and operational cooperation”.

“All of its implementation remains within the framework of national interests, a free and active foreign policy, respect for national sovereignty, and in accordance with the official mechanisms of the Indonesian government,” the spokesman said.

Separately, a spokesman for Indonesia’s foreign ministry said the overflight proposal is still under consideration and “there is no policy granting unrestricted access for any foreign party to utilise Indonesia’s airspace”.

While Hormuz remains the world’s most sensitive energy artery, carrying roughly a fifth of global oil flows, the Straits of Malacca is the primary conduit for Asia’s manufacturing and energy supply chains, with about 82,000 vessel transits annually.

The Straits of Malacca is also more than five times longer than the Strait of Hormuz, providing ample scope for disruption.

The maritime security debate extends beyond Indonesia, with the Hormuz crisis exposing differing philosophies between Singapore and neighbouring Malaysia.

Singaporean foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan, responding to a question in Parliament last week about whether the city-state would ever negotiate with Iran for safe passage or pay tolls, stressed that transit passage is guaranteed under international law and that any such arrangements would set a dangerous precedent for the Straits of Malacca.

“It is not a privilege to be granted by the bordering state, it is not a licence to be supplicated for, it is not a toll be paid,” he told lawmakers. “It is a right of ships to traverse.”

The comments rankled some in Malaysia, which recently secured passage of its ships through Hormuz after high-level talks between Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian.

“Malaysia will not be lectured on the merits of engagement,” Nurul Izzah, Anwar’s daughter and deputy president of PKR, said in response to Balakrishnan’s comments.

“We choose dialogue because history has shown that disengagement invites escalation.” - FMT