Malaysia fears military ‘miscalculation’ near Sabah amid US-China rivalry

Malaysia faces a growing risk of miscalculation near its state of Sabah as China-rivalry" class="entity-link entity-topic" data-entity-id="127596" data-entity-type="topic">US-China rivalry drives more military activities into the waters around Borneo, its defence minister has warned, bolstering the government’s push for higher spending on its armed forces.The concern is particularly acute for Malaysia, a China-sea" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="8346" data-entity-type="location">South China Sea claimant that has long sought to keep close economic ties with China while avoiding alignment with either Beijing or Washington and is feeling further unease over the expanding US-Philippine military presence just north of Sabah.Malaysian Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin told This Week in Asia that Putrajaya did not regard the Philippines, the United States, China or any other country as a specific threat, but said the increase in military activities across the region had created a more complex and potentially combustible security environment.