Editor’s Note
by Siu Tzyy Wei, Lead Editor - Maritime Crescent Desk
This week’s stories call us to look into the hidden toll of systems, especially when our lives depend on them. In Indonesia, a commuter tragedy in Bekasi pushed correspondent Rayhan Prabu to expose how infrastructure upgrades more often than not, only follow disaster, leaving workers to navigate unsafe commutes and stagnant wages. Meanwhile, Muhammad Aiman highlights the delicate balance between fiscal reform and household survival vis-a-vis Malaysia’s current subsidy rationalisation. Brunei’s Wira Gregory shines light on the deliberate construction of a bilateral economic architecture with China that has grown beyond petrochemicals into digital and agri-food supply chains.
Together, our correspondents remind us that the costs of living are borne by everyday workers, households and small states. Here, perhaps it is worth evaluating the measure of how governments choose to act, or delay, when structural pressures demand more than another workaround.
Indonesia 🇮🇩
End of the Line
by Rayhan Prabu Kusumo, in Jakarta
On April 27, a long-distance express train plowed into the rear of a stopped commuter train at Bekasi Timur Station, east of Jakarta. The car it hit was the women-only carriage. All sixteen casualties were women. Ninety-six others were taken to hospital.
Bekasi is Greater Jakarta’s industrial and residential belt - dense with factories and housing complexes, it houses 2.6 million people - largely because housing in Jakarta is out of reach and the commuter line makes the distance workable. Most of the women in that carriage were workers — heading home or to a shift.
Women-only cars are a fixture on Indonesian commuter lines, unremarkable to anyone who rides them regularly. On that night, it was that car that absorbed the full force of the collision.
Swiftly, President Prabowo pledged roughly Rp4 trillion (USD230 million) to upgrade level crossings across Java - a risk long visible and unaddressed. Monetary compensation only comes after a disaster forces it to. Infrastructure that millions depend on daily is treated as an afterthought until it stops being one in the worst possible way.
Commuting is not the only social issue treated that way. Wages have grown minimally, leaving Indonesian workers among the lower-paid in the region despite productivity gains that should have translated into better take-home pay. Informality is widespread and rising: a large share of the workforce has no contracts, no benefits, and no real recourse. And the geography of work — the reason Bekasi exists as it does, the reason those women were on that train at that hour — reflects a country that has built its economy around cheap, mobile labor.
The current administration has shown it can move resources and political will when it chooses to. But the programs defining its identity speak to a different set of priorities. For workers, the question has never really been whether the government cares. It is what the government considers worth caring about first.
Moving Indonesian manufacturing up the value chain requires an industrial environment that successive governments have gestured toward without actually building, without which workers have nowhere to go but down. Indonesia’s minimum wage is set through a formula that consistently underestimates what it actually costs to live. A wage policy that tracks productivity and real living costs rather than those assumptions would start to correct that. Moreover, a city that builds affordable housing near employment centers, would mean fewer workers making the long commute that cost those women their lives.
Unsurprisingly, the most structurally doable yet most consistently neglected, is enforcement. Laws exist, what often doesn’t is the will to make them stick. And that requires no new policy, just commitment to follow through on the ones already written.
Women-only cars were a practical solution to a problem that should not exist. They did not keep their passengers safe. Indonesia’s workers have been riding practical solutions for a long time — workarounds for wages that don’t stretch, protections that don’t hold, cities that weren’t built with them in mind. At some point, the answer cannot keep being another workaround.
Rayhan has a background in government affairs and public policy, with experience across government institutions and advisory firms. His work focuses on the intersection of geopolitics, policy, and risk, with expertise in advocacy, regulatory analysis, and stakeholder engagement. He holds a degree in Government from Universitas Padjadjaran, and has completed an exchange at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain, focusing on global politics and sustainability.
Malaysia 🇲🇾
Rationalising Subsidies
by Muhammad Aiman Bin Roszaimi, in Cyberjaya
Malaysia subsidy rationalisation represents a strategic shift from a blanket to a targeted fiscal framework, necessitated by the escalating cost of subsidies which recently strained the national budget. The primary objective is to consolidate public finances while curbing leakages, specifically the cross-border smuggling of diesel and the consumption of subsidised goods by high-income earners and non-citizens.
A major milestone in this transition occurred with the rationalisation of diesel subsidies in Peninsular Malaysia, where the retail price was allowed to float to market rates. To mitigate the immediate economic shock, the government introduced the BUDI MADANI program, which provides monthly cash transfers to eligible logistics providers and individual diesel vehicle owners.
This model serves as a precursor for the planned adjustments to RON95 petrol, where the top tier of earners will eventually pay market prices while the vast majority of the population remains protected. Similar tiered approaches have already been applied to electricity tariffs, where high-volume domestic users and industrial sectors face higher rates while the majority of households are insulated through rebates.
However, the impact of subsidy rationalisation in the current environment is complex and uneven. On the positive side, economists recognise that rationalisation can significantly improve Malaysia’s fiscal position and create policy space for development spending or social protection. It also aligns with broader structural reforms, including efforts to rebalance revenue constraints and enhance spending efficiency, rather than relying on subsidies as a blunt redistributive tool.
At the same time, the policy carries immediate socio-economic risks. The removal or reduction of subsidies, particularly fuel subsidies, can translate into higher living costs, either directly through price increases or indirectly via transportation and supply chain effects. Evidence suggests that such measures may compress household disposable income, especially among middle-income urban groups who are more exposed to market-priced fuel. More critically, vulnerable populations may experience disproportionate hardship if compensatory mechanisms are insufficient or poorly timed.
Beyond material effects, the political economy dimension of subsidy reform is equally significant. Public resistance to subsidy removal is well documented, with support often contingent on how reforms are framed and communicated. Studies show that acceptance increases when reforms are presented as redistributive and equitable, rather than purely fiscal measures. In Malaysia’s current context, policymakers have explicitly acknowledged this challenge, emphasising the need for clear communication to prevent misinformation and maintain public trust. Economists similarly warn that poorly communicated reforms risk triggering public backlash, particularly at a time when cost-of-living pressures remain acute.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has emphasized that the success of these reforms hinges on clear public communication and the efficiency of the civil service in explaining the necessity of the shift. This is crucial to curb misinformation and ensure that the transition from traditional income classifications to a more nuanced one. Ultimately, Malaysia is navigating a complex policy evolution where the long-term goal of market efficiency must be carefully managed against the immediate realities of the cost of living.
Aiman is a PhD candidate in Security and Strategic Analysis at the National University of Malaysia. His research focuses on Malaysia’s space policy, ASEAN regional security, and the strategic implications of emerging technologies. His work explores how Malaysia’s defense policy and strategic culture shape its approach to outer space.
Brunei Darussalam 🇧🇳
COMTIEC 6 and Continuing Brunei-China Relations
by Wira Gregory Ejau, in Bandar Seri Begawan
On April 23 in Bandar Seri Begawan, senior officials from Brunei and China convened the sixth iteration of the Consultation Meeting on Trade, Investment and Economic Cooperation ( COMTIEC), reaffirming commitments across the Belt and Road Initiative, digital economy, agriculture, and logistics cooperation.
The six iterations of COMTIEC have represented the institutionalisation of a relationship that both sides have invested in sustaining across shifting geopolitical conditions that operate beneath the threshold of political visibility. The scaffolding has long since been built on a deep relationship of notable intentionality that has long existed since China’s BRI alignment with Brunei’s Wawasan 2035 development framework, the establishment of the Brunei-Guangxi Economic Corridor, the Hengyi petrochemical complex, and the designation of Pulau Muara Besar as an industrial zone with Chinese investment. This has arguably produced a unique, bilateral architecture that is considerably more layered than most comparable small-state partnerships, with COMTIEC 6 extending it further into the maintenance of digital economy, innovation, and agri-food supply chains.
The language employed on the subject of regional and international issues, particularly the joint reaffirmation of “open markets, regional integration, and a rules-based, transparent and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system, with the World Trade Organisation at its core” is notable at a moment when US tariff escalations have placed the assumptions underlying the multilateral trading order under a degree of pressure. The inscription of WTO-centrism into a bilateral communiqué, therefore, locates both parties within an increasingly contested institutional landscape and does so in an outward-facing record.
China’s commitment at COMTIEC 6 to building economic corridors that position Brunei as a regional logistics hub is worth disaggregating, as the Pulau Muara Besar zone sits on deep-water access. The extension of COMTIEC cooperation into agri-food supply chains and digital economy infrastructure suggests the relationship is consciously broadening its sectoral base, which is a development consistent with both Wawasan 2035’s diversification logic and China’s wider interest in anchoring regional digital and food supply architectures.
The original axis of the relationship was heavily concentrated in petrochemicals and downstream energy, with the Hengyi refinery and the PMB zone being its most visible expressions. COMTIEC 6 extends the agenda explicitly, and adds a dimension specifically directed at micro, small and medium enterprise integration through Chinese trade platforms and expos. This element is distinct from the mega-infrastructure logic that has characterised earlier phases of the relationship. MSME market access through the China ASEAN Expo and the China International Import Expo represents a commercialisation pathway that operates at a different scale and involves Brunei’s private sector in ways that capital-intensive infrastructure projects structurally might not cover. If commitments follow through, the cumulative effect is a relationship that is broader-based and therefore more resilient to any single sectoral disruption, playing into the economic diversification strategy required of its external partnerships.
What COMTIEC 6 ultimately illustrates is the difference between a bilateral relationship and a bilateral architecture. The former depends on political will; the latter accumulates its own institutional gravity across sectors, mechanisms, and iterations.
Gregory is an MSc candidate in Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He works as a freelance writer specializing in international history, conflict, and counterterrorism, with experience in academia, investigative journalism, and voluntary uniformed service. He currently provides research assistance with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) under their Southeast Asian Security and Defence Internship Programme and conducts investigations on regional security and transnational crime for a confidential company.
Editorial Deadline 02/05/2026 11:59 PM (UTC +8)
