Is Malaysia Really a ‘Maritime’ Nation?
Despite its close connection to the maritime domain, Malaysia still thinks and behaves strategically like a continental power.
By
May 25, 2021
The Royal Malaysian Navy and Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency take part in maritime training exercise with the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard, August 16, 2019.
Credit: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tristin Barth
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In its first Defense White Paper, published in 2019, Malaysia proclaimed itself to be a “maritime nation with continental roots.” Indeed, the nation has a unique geography: peninsular Malaysia is connected to the larger Eurasian continent via the Isthmus of Kra, while East Malaysia consists of two states – Sabah and Sarawak – located far off on the island of Borneo, together with Brunei and Indonesia’s Kalimantan. Malaysia has long coastlines, large maritime Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), and continental shelves in the South China Sea and Sulu Sea, and partly controls the strategic choke-points of the Strait of Malacca and the Straits of Johor. This country’s immersion in the maritime domain appears to concur with geopolitical thinker Nicholas Spykman’s dictum, “Geography does not argue. It simply is.”