Maritime Security in Southeast Asia

1. The importance of the Southeast Asia sea lanes of communications ( SLOCs) to the economies is beyond question. The attention devoted to safeguarding the innocent passage of commercial shipping through the Southeast Asian Straits is going to increase as countries such as China, India and Japan are scrambling to secure deliveries of energy and raw materials to fuel their booming economies. The safety and security of the SLOCs are already hot topics in Asia and both littoral states and user countries pursue policies designed to achieve those goals.
2. The piracy threat to the SLOCs is disputed amongs the Southeast Asian countries themselves. Since 9/11 some countries, the US prominent among them, have been looking for any connection between piracy and terrorism. The Southeast Asian countries would argue that so far there is no proven link in the Southeast Asian waters, but they will be looking for any evidence since combating terrorism is a common obligation for any country.
3. The term “ piracy “ is debated when it comes to the illegal activities that occur in various Southeast Asian Strait, with Malacca prominent among them. Indonesia and Malaysia will argue that according to the definition of piracy in UNCLOS, there is no piracy taking place in the Malacca Strait, only armed robbery. Piracy is by definition an activity that take place solely on high seas, not in the territorial waters.