Indonesia’s run-in with Chinese vessels underscores struggle to defend its waters: analysts

A recent stand-off between Indonesia’s coastguard and Chinese fishing vessels underscores Jakarta’s struggle to defend its maritime boundaries, analysts say, with recurring incursions raising concerns about the nation’s capacity to safeguard its waters amid rising tensions in the region.

The Indonesian coastguard (Bakamla) said it had spotted five Chinese-flagged fishing vessels on Tuesday anchored around waters located 22 nautical miles (40.7km) north of Tanjung Berakit, a key reference point for determining the boundaries of Indonesia’s territorial waters in the South China Sea under international maritime law.

“Despite being contacted via radio, the five ships did not respond,” Bakamla’s spokesman Captain Yuhanes Antara said in a statement released on Wednesday. He said the coastguard initially assumed the “suspicious” ships were waiting to enter the port of Singapore.

By early Wednesday, a Bakamla patrol ship had escorted the Chinese vessels into the Singapore traffic separation scheme, a regulated route system that manages maritime traffic in the Singapore Strait, which is one of the busiest shipping routes in the world.

“This firm step shows Bakamla’s commitment to protecting the sovereignty of Indonesian waters from illegal activities carried out by foreign vessels,” Yuhanes said, without elaborating on the ships’ activities while in Indonesian territory.