Feature: Foreign troops on islands and reefs of South China Sea(3)

Malaysia garrisons on five islands and reefs for a long time

Malaysia's encroachment on the Nansha Islands started with looting resources, followed by occupation of territory.

After a naval drill with Australia, New Zealand, Britain and Singapore in August 1983, Malaysia dispatched its Marine Corps to occupy Swallow Reef and stationed 22 soldiers there. After that, it sent troops to occupy Mariveles Reef and Ardasier Reef at Nansha in 1986 and then Yuya Shoal and Erica Reef in May 1999.

After occupying Swallow Reef, Malaysia increased its garrison there to nearly 100 people, built simple airport and radio facilities, and gradually developed it into a famous tourist resort.

Currently Malaysia has permanent garrisons on five islands and reefs, which are distributed on Swallow Reef, Andu Bank, Mariveles Reef, Erica Reef and Yuya Shoal respectively. The 100-odd troops in the garrisons are all under the jurisdiction of the Malaysian Second Command of Maritime Territory.

Malaysia is very careful in striking a balance between the territorial disputes over islands and reefs in the South China Sea and the multilateral friendly relations. It used to occupy the Nantong Reef that Brunei claimed to own but retreated silently. A center of its policy is to consolidate the existing interests without triggering substantial disputes.

Malaysia also attaches great importance to improving its strengths. It has imported 18 MiG-29 warplanes from Russia, 32 US-made F-18 airplanes and Hawk airplanes, and successively purchased 54 new vessels in recent years.

To adapt to the battle need in the South China Sea, Malaysia has energetically intensified its naval submarine construction and bought two Scorpène-class submarines and the retired French submarine Agosta in succession.

Malaysia is regarded as having advanced fighters and surface vessels, so it is able to deploy troops in the disputed areas. The 2014 Defense Report released by Britain's Jane's Defence Weekly noted that Malaysia is pushing its naval modernization.

In a budget report in October this year, a Malaysian leader confirmed that the Falcon fighter squadron of the Royal Malaysian Air Force at Butterworth base will move to Labuan, a Malaysia-claimed area that's closer to the South China Sea.

Brunei has no military presence

After Brunei became an independent country in 1984, it claimed "sovereignty" over Nantong Reef at the south end of the South China Sea. When China issued the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, Brunei reacted quickly to buy three offshore patrol boats and some warplanes from Britain.

Although Nantong Reef is under the actual control of Brunei, it doesn't deploy troops on relevant islands, so it has no military presence in the South China Sea.

As a country with a small land territory and population, Brunei has a very small navy and has never adopted any tougher policies. Although the small yet excellent Royal Brunei Navy is able to accomplish maritime search and rescue tasks, it's unable to compete with the surrounding countries.

In the long term, Brunei will try its best to avoid any rash and obviously biased diplomatic policy because it is unable to fend off any strong external enemy on its own.

Li Mingjiang, an expert on South China Sea issues at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, told Global Times that generally speaking, countries including Vietnam deploy regular troops on islands they occupied, rotate their garrisons there, and mostly equip them with light weapons. There are also wharfs and airports on some big islands. In terms of military strength, Vietnam is the strongest, followed by Malaysia and the Philippines.