Charting Stability Beyond the South China Sea: What ASEAN Littoral States Could Learn from the Strait of Malacca

In the past few weeks, over 15 vessels a day have passed the Strait of Hormuz – five times fewer than the usual 90 pre-crisis baseline. War-risk insurance for tankers now runs eight times higher than the normal rate, and several protection and indemnity programmes have withdrawn coverage simultaneously. At the same time, thousands of seafarers remain stranded as the United States (US) and Israeli militaries resume strikes against Iran along the waterway. Since the war erupted earlier this February (2026), the trade route blockade has been oscillating. Despite a brief ceasefire in June, the agreement broke swiftly following the continued attacks on shadow-fleet tankers belonging to Tehran. This is a testament to the fact that great-power rivalry outweighs the consent and capacity of maritime states to shape the dynamics of chokepoint security.      

Despite not being a party to the conflict, Southeast Asia is not merely a spectator and has been cautious in its external engagement, as the region has been greatly affected by energy price hikes. The Philippines Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro warned that the South China Sea must not become another paralysed chokepoint as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) seeks to accelerate the conclusion of the long-overdue Code of Conduct (CoC) negotiations before the end of the Manila chairmanship this September. The strategic anxiety was justified, as the chairmanship started on a high note, and the conclusion of the CoC would be timely as the country commemorates the 10^th anniversary of the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) Award on the South China Sea – giving the country legal clarity on how to navigate its stake in the first island chain in the South China Sea. Nevertheless, constant ceremonies without concrete pragmatism could lead to geopolitical incompetence. Renewed maritime incursions across the Scarborough Shoal without concerted diplomatic efforts have weakened Manila’s leadership – relying solely on “megaphone diplomacy” to call out China has put little to no effect on the region’s effort in concluding the CoC – making ASEAN’s long tradition of anchoring order through stability a matter of continued uncertainty.

In such complexity, ASEAN littoral states need an alternative pathway to preserve their model of maritime order. The closest model of engagement appears from within – its custodianship in the Strait of Malacca. Southeast Asia’s frontline states – Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore – have converted the waterway from a war-risk zone to a zone of constructive engagement through MALSINDO-coordinated patrols – now Malacca Straits Patrols (MSP) – comprising sea patrols, Eyes-in-the-Sky air patrols, and an intelligence exchange group among four littoral states (MSP Plus Thailand). This model is a creative expression of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Article 43 as a burden-sharing framework in which user states and shipping industry stakeholders fund navigational aids and capacity-building without diluting littoral sovereignty over the waterway.

The recent analysis from Chatham House made the contrast between Hormuz and Malacca explicit. Reviewing the proposed UK-France naval coalition earlier this May, Nitya Labh noted that the recurring counter-piracy effort in the Horn of Africa has made it highly dependent on foreign navies – thus, when international attention moved on, piracy returned. The Malacca Strait Patrols, by contrast, succeeded precisely because littoral states retained full command from the outset – keeping engagement with foreign navies externalised in burden-sharing without dictating terms on managing the waterway. The Hormuz crisis exhibits the opposite – security now depends on the war trajectory between Washington and Tehran – leaving the Gulf states with little to no agency over a waterway in their own backyard. Assessments of Malacca after the Washington strikes have begun to veer toward a more cautious stance. The MSP arrangement is not entirely flawless or expandable as littoral states continue to refrain from over-internationalising the waters even as MSP welcomes technical assistance, but the model has proven more resilient than any external patronage model elsewhere.

While Malacca’s littoral states are not contesting sovereignty, the South China Sea claimants do. In fairness, a CoC exercise cannot simply exemplify sea patrol practices and expect incursions vis-à-vis Beijing to be resolved. However, the transferable lesson lies within its treaty text – the bottom-up sequencing for stability through non-sensitive but functional cooperation before any comprehensive settlement of underlying disputes. Indonesia has started this tradition – even as CoC stalled – Jakarta led the launch of the ASEAN Coast Guards Forum in 2022 and has become a venue for interoperability protocols among regional coast guards. Prior to this, the 2017 Sulu-Celebes Sea trilateral patrols among Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines had offered a framework for shared maritime domain awareness. The emergence of a maritime security triangle between Jakarta, Hanoi, and Manila, built from two successful maritime delimitation deals among them in 2014 and 2022, has demonstrated that complex settlements between coastal and archipelagic states are achievable even in the absence of a comprehensive multilateral agreement as long as the “ASEAN Way” of restraint and reciprocity remains intact.

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