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发帖数: 9459 | 1 Malaysia Buying Chinese Ships to Protect its Waters From China, Others
TAIPEI, TAIWAN —
Malaysia’s deal to buy Chinese naval ships and step up patrols against any
intrusions from China underscores the complexity of relations between the
two countries and signals growing concern over national defense.
Officials from the Southeast Asian country, with a coastline stretching from
the Sulu Sea westward to the Indian Ocean, said in November they would get
four littoral mission ships made in China.
Littoral mission ships are relatively small vessels designed in the past for
stealth combat near coastlines, sometimes against bigger enemies.
Upgrade aging fleet
Analysts say those ships would head up the replacement of 50 vessels in the
Royal Malaysian Navy to protect its waters from a list of threats. Among
them is China, which competes with Malaysia for claims to the shared South
China Sea.
“China, when their vessels patrol the nine-dash line, that brings them very
close to Malaysian shores,” said Ibrahim Suffian, program director with
the Kuala Lumpur-based polling group Merdeka Center. He was referring to a
line China uses to delineate a maritime claim extending from its southern
coast almost to Indonesia.
“The prime minister announced the agreement with China last year, for four
littoral vessels,” he said. “In the past the Malaysian armed forces have
typically favored Western equipment, whether from the U.S., the U.K. or
France, so this marks a departure from the practice.”
Malaysian backlash
In 2015, the country spotted a Chinese coast guard ship anchored at Luconia
Shoals, which are tiny South China Sea land forms about 150 kilometers north
of Malaysian Borneo. A Chinese naval vessel had been seen earlier near
Malaysia, and in March 2016 Malaysia spotted 100 Chinese fishing boats
escorted by Beijing’s coast guard.
Some in the country of 31 million people feel their government reacts weakly
to China’s ship movements, a perception that has threatened the ruling
party’s reputation, said Collin Koh, maritime security research fellow at
Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
“If you look at what happened in September 2015, when they had the first
revelations about this Chinese coast guard vessel stationed off Luconia
Shoal, there was quite a public backlash because people were questioning how
come the Malaysian government allowed the coast guard vessel to be there,”
Koh said.
The government of Prime Minister Najib Razak felt “there must be something
done at least to appease the public and to show the public that something is
really done and they are serious about it,” he said.
Valuable economic partner
Malaysia usually avoids poking China directly because of a valuable economic
relationship, analysts say. Malaysia counts China, the world’s second
largest economy, as its top trading partner and leading source of direct
foreign investment.
China uses its economic influence elsewhere in Southeast Asia, most recently
in the Philippines, in exchange for tolerance of its activities in the
disputed sea.
China maintains the world’s third strongest military compared to Malaysia
at No. 34, according to the database GlobalFirePower.com.
“No matter how much Malaysia is going to upgrade the navy, it’s not going
to catch up with China’s naval expansion by a far stretch,” said Oh Ei Sun
, international studies instructor at Singapore Nanyang University | f**o
发帖数: 12685 | 2 马来西亚也是贪官当道，跟邓产党贪官打得火热，默契得很。 | f******t
发帖数: 19544 | | f******t
发帖数: 19544 | 4 东南亚各国，以后不用海军，海上安全都由中国打理。 |
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