Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are deepening maritime cooperation, including with the inaugural meeting of the Indonesia Coast Guard (Bakamla), Singapore Police Coast Guard (SPCG) and Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), and a port visit by two SPCG vessels to Jakarta, Indonesia.
The initiatives promise heightened information-sharing and interoperability, while building on other regional defense efforts.
“We know that the sea knows no boundaries — smuggling vessels can move from one region to another in a matter of minutes,” Marcellus Hakeng Jayawibawa, a defense analyst at the Jakarta-based Lemhannas Strategic Center, told FORUM. “This collaboration brings the ability to share information with each other in near real time.
“When the MMEA radar in Malaysia picks up a suspicious vessel moving towards Indonesia, the information is immediately sent to Bakamla, who can act immediately,” he said. “In the past, such situations were often caught in a vacuum of responsibility due to jurisdictional boundaries. Now, through a connected communication system, surveillance is almost without pause.”
In addition to countering crime, the trilateral cooperation, which features joint patrols and exercises, enhances the nations’ ability to monitor China’s maritime activities, according to Dr. Jelang Ramadhan, a lecturer at the University of Indonesia’s School of Strategic and Global Studies.
China is violating international law by “increasingly building military facilities on artificial islands around the South China Sea,” he told FORUM.
The July 2025 trilateral meeting focused on advancing maritime security through coordinated patrols, simulated exercises and collaborative training, Bakamla said in a statement to FORUM.
The SPCG patrol vessels Blue Shark and Tiger Shark, escorted by the Bakamla patrol ship KN Belut Laut-406, arrived in Jakarta in mid-July.
Jayawibawa said the event symbolizes the depth of maritime cooperation among the nations. During such interactions, “officers not only learn tactics and procedures together, but also understand each other’s working styles. They share the deck, develop patrol scenarios, conduct simulated ship boardings, and carry out SAR [search and rescue] procedures together.”
Cooperative coast guard activities — such as the Vessel Search Course in Singapore in 2023 and coordinated patrols — demonstrate a “concrete step toward unifying their efforts to safeguard the shared maritime domain,” he said.
He highlighted other examples of regional maritime cooperation, including the Malacca Strait Patrol, which Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore launched in 2004 and Thailand subsequently joined. The Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines initiative known as INDOMALPHI, meanwhile, enhances security in the Sulu and Sulawesi seas. Both collaborative programs combat piracy, armed robbery and kidnapping through joint patrols, intelligence sharing and synchronized operations.
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