The Strait of Malacca

 When I visited Malacca while I worked in Malaysia, I felt relaxed when I saw the beautiful scenery of the Strait of Malacca.

But I didn’t know about the difficult background behind it.


Malacca straight has been a “choke point” throughout world history.

“Choke point” means it is a very narrow sea lane, and it has important geographical advantage.


Shippers have been going through the Strait of Malacca.

Especially Chinese and Arabic merchants were getting rich trading with each other.


There had been some fishing villages in Malacca, initially.

The Prince of Srivijaya built the port and converted to Muslim to deal with Arabic merchants.

He became the Sultan Iskandar Shah. It sounds strong, doesn’t it?




He is still a hero in Malaysia now.

Sultan means the King of an Islamic region. So, this area is called Malacca Sultanate.

He also married with the princess of China to forge a strong alliance with them.

Malacca got the powerful support on both military and trading.

And they started the golden age.

But Western countries were aiming for this area.



Firstly, Portugal conquered Malacca.

After that, many Europeans had visited there.



Francisco de Xavier was one of them. He went to Japan with the Japanese drifter Yajiro.

Malacca Sultanate is the origin of Malaysia.

Malaysia had been colonized by 4 countries: Portugal, Netherlands, England and Japan.

After WWII, England managed to control Malaysia again, but they didn’t have power any more.

Malaysia got independence.



Singapore was a part of Malaysia.

Malaysia expelled Singapore because of the difference of their policy to other ethnicities.

The main ethnic group in Malaysia is Malay, but Singapore is Chinese.

When Singapore was independent, they had nothing—no land, resources, finances, or industries…

But Singapore took geographic advantage themselves and struggled to grow their economy.

As you know, they succeeded.




Now, Singapore is the one of the biggest business centers and richest countries in the world.

But the geopolitical problem still exists there. That’s the “Malacca Dilemma”.

As I showed, the Strait of Malacca has been ruled by the strongest countries, like Portugal, 
the Netherlands, England and…  

who is next?



America controlled it because of the alliance between ASEAN.

But China is claiming it now.

They manage to control the South China Sea and Strait of Malacca, because the oil China uses comes through there.

The US Navy is patrolling with the strongest Frigates to protect this area.

So China is building a land route through Myanmar or Pakistan to avoid them.

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