Malacca Strait Cable Disruption Could Cripple Key Services Across The Region
By Nur Atiq Maisarah Suhaimi
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 17 (Bernama) -- Beneath the Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping routes, lie strategically critical submarine cables transmitting US$10 trillion in financial transactions daily, with any serious disruption potentially crippling banks, hospitals and airports in Malaysia and across the region.
Citizens International chairman Dr Shahridan Faiez, who is also Technical Director at Think City and previously worked with the World Bank, said the submarine cables added another critical dimension to the strategic importance of the waterway, which is already a major conduit for global trade and energy supplies.
Speaking in an interview on Bernama TV’s programme Bernama World on Wednesday, he said more than 39 per cent of seaborne oil passed through the waterway while nearly 80 per cent of East Asia’s oil imports came through it, with an annual cargo value of US$5 trillion.
“What many people are not familiar with is the fact that underneath the water, on the seabed, are very important and strategically critical submarine cables that carry data, and these submarine cables transmit US$10 trillion of financial transactions every day.
“If anything negative were to happen to these submarine cables in the Strait of Malacca, it would have a huge impact not simply on our energy security, but on the running of our banks, hospitals, airports and basically, it would cripple the operation of not just our country, but also the region as a whole,” he said.
Citizens International is a Malaysian-based international NGO advocating peaceful coexistence and global cooperation.
On the possibility of diverting shipping through the Lombok and Makassar straits if the Strait of Malacca were seriously disrupted, Shahridan said such an option was not realistic, given the significant difference in vessel traffic and the lack of necessary infrastructure.
“It is actually not a fair comparison, because the Strait of Malacca has over 102,000 transits a year. In contrast, Lombok and Makassar have only about 6,000 vessels, which is less than six per cent of the traffic going through the Strait of Malacca. So expecting that to be a backup plan is not realistic,” he said.
He said the Lombok and Makassar straits also lacked the necessary infrastructure to serve as alternative shipping routes, including ports, bunkering and pilot services, as well as ship repair yards.
Compounding the vulnerability, Shahridan said only about 20 of the 60 specialised cable repair ships worldwide were operational at any one time, meaning repairs following an incident in the Strait of Malacca could take months rather than weeks and have a major impact on Malaysia and the region.
Against this backdrop, he said the Strait of Hormuz crisis should serve as a wake-up call for Southeast Asia as any disruption to the Strait of Malacca could affect not only energy security but also critical data and financial transactions.
On the security of the waterway, Shahridan said primary responsibility must stay strictly with the littoral states, namely Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.
He said an external power had proposed playing a role in policing the Strait of Malacca in the early 2000s but the proposal was rejected by the littoral states and ASEAN, which subsequently developed the Malacca Straits Patrol.
“We want to maintain that. We don't want any of the big powers to muscle their way into the Strait of Malacca.
"Keeping the neutrality of our zone and region is very important, and this is where the role of ASEAN becomes critical while the concept of ASEAN centrality really has to be put into practice,” he said.
On whether ASEAN needed a more binding framework to protect the Strait of Malacca, he said ASEAN already had the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), established in 1976, which solidified the principles of non-interference and peaceful settlement of disputes and conflicts.
--BERNAMA
