Singapore, one of the richest countries located on the in the South China Sea, has recently been having disputes with Malaysia over territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. Five government Malaysian ships were in the waters off of Singapore. The government of Malaysia insists that they are in Malaysian waters however. One of the ships is a buoy laying ship that was sent to repair the MV Polaris, a buoy that is owned by Malaysia that floated out of Singapore’s waters on Saturday. The government claimed it needed to restock and refuel the vesell. The ships however are still in Singapore territory even after the repair. Malaysian ships have repeatedly made incursions into the port of Johor Bahru in the past few months. These incursions are a result of Malaysia extending the Johor Bahru port limits in October.
Malaysia is directly to the north of Singapore and separated by the Johor strait. The border is a virtual line that goes down the middle of the strait. Malaysia claims to have extended this port which is causing border disputes. Singapore’s response to the action was extending their own port limits on December 6th. Airspace over southern Johor is also in question. These ports are important to each country because they possess massive amounts of economic influence. This border dispute is not the only security threat faced by Singapore at this time.
Singapore has recently been hacked and among the documents stolen were, demographic data, as well as medicine prescriptions of over 160,000 people. They believe the hackers were after one specific thing, the medical data of the Prime Minister. Authorities believe that this was a state sponsored hacking. This is not the first believed state sponsored hack on Singapore. It is believed that Russia and China have meddled in elections in 2016 and 2018. The prime minister has said that he will step down when he is 70 years old and pass on his title to the current finance minister of Singapore. The government has released a statement saying that they suspect state sponsored hacking but cannot prove it, and to demand that private companies prioritize security.