Maritime Security in Southeast Asia: Two Cheers for Regional Cooperation

Summary

It would be difficult to overstate the geostrategic and economic importance of Southeast Asia's maritime domains. The sea lanes of communication (SLOCs) that criss-cross and pass through Southeast Asia function as vital arteries of world trade. Southeast Asian SLOCs have been instrumental in the success of the ASEAN countries’ export-led economic growth, while countless maritime communities dotted across the region continue to depend on the sea for their livelihoods. Further north, the economic powerhouses of Northeast Asia — Japan, the People's Republic of China (PRC) and South Korea — rely on Southeast Asian SLOCs for the safe passage of 80–90 per cent of their energy supplies from the Middle East and Africa, and as conduits for transporting their manufactured goods to other parts of Asia, Europe and beyond. For the world's Great Powers, especially the United States and Japan, but increasingly China and India, Southeast Asia's SLOCs and maritime chokepoints such as the Malacca, Sunda and Lombok-Makassar Straits have strategic value beyond measure, linking as they do Northeast Asia and the Western Pacific with the Indian Ocean.

Over the past several decades, globalization contributed to a phenomenal increase in the volume of seaborne trade: in 2007, 8.02 billion tonnes of goods were moved by sea, up from 6.27 billion in 2000 and 2.6 billion in 1970. The dynamic economies of Asia accounted for much of this growth: in 2007 Asia took the lion's share, accounting for 40 per cent of loaded goods, followed by the Americas (23 per cent), Europe (18 per cent), Africa (10 per cent) and Oceania (9 per cent). Of the world's 20 busiest ports in 2005, 15 were located in Asia; and of the 20 busiest container terminals 13 were in Asia, including seven in the PRC alone. China's spectacular economic growth since the late 1970s has been a major, if not the primary, driver of maritime trade expansion, forcing the global shipping industry to struggle to keep pace with demand for vessels to carry raw materials into China and transport Chinese-manufactured goods to overseas markets.