Penny Wong's special connection to Sabah best demonstrated by Australian Government led investment in Sabah's Royal Malaysian Navy submarine base - AUKUS , FPDA provide the basis

 by Ganesh Sahathevan 

 

  Penny Wong and brother James, of her recently
acknowledged extended family in Sabah

In 2015 Malaysia's Minister for Defence Hishamuddin Tun Hussein Onn said:

“I am of the opinion that the preparedness of (the Sepanggar submarine)  base must be improved with an advanced Air Defence System to overcome any challenges which might come this way.

“In line with technological advancements, the navy is thinking of new plans, including overcoming scenarios of the current threat in the South China Sea and the waters around East Sabah,”

The Sepanggar  base is home to Malaysia's two diesel electric submarines, the KD Tunku Abdul Rahman and the KD Tun Razak and it  of interest to China's Peoples' Liberation Army. As China analyst Geoff Wade observed  in 2015: 

In a quiet but undoubtedly significant event, Admiral Wu Shengli (吴胜利), commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy and a member of the PRC’s Central Military Commission recently visited Malaysia with an entourage of 10 senior officials. During his visit, Admiral Wu secured agreement from the Malaysian Navy for the ships of the PLA Navy to use the port of Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo as a ‘stopover location’ to ‘strengthen defence ties between the two countries’.

Access to a northern Borneo port has long been an ambition of the PLA Navy in its efforts to expand control in the South China Sea. Two years ago, in a Strategist posting entitled Xi Jinping and the Sabah enigma, I noted how Xi Jinping’s planned visit to Sabah (subsequently aborted) reflected PRC efforts to increase links with that key region of northern Borneo. Chinese naval personnel first visited Kota Kinabalu in August 2013.

In the light of these visits and increasing PRC maritime assertiveness, only the most innocent would, on observing the location of Darwin between the South China Sea and the Indian and South Pacific Oceans, conclude that the PLA Navy would not likewise be interested in securing access to and facilities in the port of Darwin. Particularly if it was under the control of a Chinese enterprise for the coming century.

Indeed, by 2017 PLA submarines were calling at Sepanggar. Malaysia's NST reported in that year: 

A Chinese submarine has docked in Malaysia, the second such visit to the Southeast Asian country this year, as western powers fret over China’s expanding reach in the South China Sea.

The Royal Malaysian Navy confirmed the visit by the Chinese submarine, which docked at the Sepanggar naval base in the state of Sabah in Borneo between Friday and Monday.

Australia's new Foreign Minister Penny Wong claims a special relationship with Sabah, for she was born there. There have been many reports published by Australia's media outlets celebrating her recent return to Sabah as Foreign Minister of Australia, which Australian media and Wong say heralds a new era in Malaysia-Australia relations. 

Malaysia's Defence Minister Hishamuddin has said that facilities at the Sepanggar base need improvement and a new era born of that special relationship can be cemented by  Wong persuading her Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to have the Australian Government lead investment into  Sepanggar and other naval facilities in Sabah.

The Australian Government is party to the 50 year old Five Power Defence Agreement (FPDA) to which Malaysia is also a party,  and the more recent AUKUS nuclear submarine pact. The South China Sea is a subject  of common interest to both agreements, and that provides the Australian Government with a policy basis for the types of investment initiative described above. 

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