Editor’s Note
by Siu Tzyy Wei, Lead Editor - Maritime Crescent Desk
Three stories, moving in different directions and calculations.
In Brunei, a new door opened quietly: formal diplomatic ties with Bhutan, another small kingdom adding a name to its map of friends and allies. In Indonesia, Prabowo swore in the leaders of a new state university, while calling his critics traitors in a colonial-era phrase. In Malaysia, a single deportation case spoke volumes on where the country still stands.
Together, they are all deciding what to open, what to guard and what to protect.
Indonesia 🇮🇩
Loyalty, By Degree
by Rayhan Prabu Kusumo, in Jakarta
Within two days, President Prabowo Subianto made two moves that seemed unrelated. On July 22, he swore in the leaders of a new state university built to groom the country’s future officials. The following evening, on the anniversary of a political party, he told the room that some Indonesians serve foreign masters the way collaborators once served the Dutch, now dressed as reporters, analysts, and NGO workers. Two moments, one project.
The thread between them was a phrase: londo ireng, black Dutchman. In colonial times, it named the native who took the colonizer’s side against his own people, and carrying the full weight of the word traitor. Aimed at journalists and civil-society groups, it recasts criticism as disloyalty and the critic as a foreign asset, a charge Prabowo pressed by asking “who pays for their electricity.” Coming from the highest office, the phrase signals to officials and supporters that surveillance and prosecution of these people are now fair game.
The university is the quieter half of the story. Universitas Republik Indonesia is modelled on France’s old École nationale d’administration, the school that trained the French governing class for decades. It exists to form future civil servants and state-company chiefs, shaping their skills, character and way of thinking. The irony seems lost on its planners: France abandoned that model in 2021 precisely because it produced a narrow, uniform elite, and replaced it with the Institut national du service public, a model that is built to widen the sociopolitical pipeline.
Set side by side, the two moves point the same way: both treat independent thought as a problem to manage. The people Prabowo named have spent his term documenting what this column has tracked - unsustainable expensive programs, a weakening economy, and the creeping militarization. Campuses have been the engine of nearly every protest against the leader, despite being silenced before. The New Order reordered university life to kill student politics, and it held for a generation. The instinct to still the places where dissent forms is not new here. It is being exercised again, more gently, but in broad daylight.
There is a fair case on the other side. Leaders everywhere complain about the press, legitimacy of foreign funding towards advocacy, and whether Indonesia can reasonably want a competent school for its officials. None of that is authoritarian by itself. The danger is in the combination and the source. When the head of state calls critics traitors, and the next elite is trained in an institution built to form loyalty, the room for dissent narrows, regardless of the intent.
By the president’s own definition, the reporter who filed this week’s uncomfortable story is a londo ireng. But so is the economist, the NGO clerk, and whoever wrote this. When the word for critique and traitor collapses into one, a government has long stopped answering its critics and instead, started counting them.
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 🇲🇾
Standing Strong
by Muhammad Aiman Bin Roszaimi, in Cyberjaya
Malaysia’s recent decision to deport any Israeli citizen found within its borders has once again placed the country at the centre of international attention. After the deportation of a US-Israeli citizen, the US. State Department summoned the Malaysian ambassador for an explanation of its policy.
While the episode appears to be a diplomatic surprise, it has been Malaysia’s long standing foreign policy. Therefore, understanding why Malaysia maintains this position requires examining its historical, diplomatic and domestic foundations.
Malaysia has never established diplomatic relations with Israel since gaining independence. Successive governments have consistently refused to recognise Israel until a just resolution to the Palestinian issue is achieved - a position consistent across four different administrations.
The immediate trigger for the latest controversy was an investigation into the Network School community in Johor, where allegations emerged that Israelis were participating using foreign passports, albeit with valid travel documents. As authorities required the individual to leave the country, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim declared that any Israeli citizen identified in Malaysia would likewise be deported.
From Kuala Lumpur’s perspective, this is fundamentally an immigration and sovereignty issue. Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan emphasised that Malaysia immigration policy does not recognise Israel and therefore does not permit Israeli nationals to remain in the country. The government has reiterated that this is not a newly introduced measure but a longwithstanding policy.
Beyond legal and diplomatic considerations, Malaysia’s position is also shaped by its foreign policy identity. The Palestinian cause has become one of the country’s most enduring international commitments, seen across its voting behaviour at the United Nations, humanitarian assistance, and diplomatic statements. For Malaysia and its leaders, support for Palestine is presented as a matter of international law, anti-colonial solidarity and the protection of civilian populations.
Domestic politics further reinforce this stance. Public sympathy for Palestine remains exceptionally strong across Malaysia’s multiethnic society, making any significant shift towards recognising Israel politically difficult. Rather than representing a partisan position, support for Palestine has evolved into a bipartisan consensus that transcends changes in government, giving policymakers considerable domestic legitimacy on international grounds.
However, United States’ criticism has prompted Congress members to call for a review of US-Malaysia bilateral security cooperation and military training programmes, illustrating how regional policies on Israel can increasingly affect broader strategic relationships, particularly as geopolitical competition intensifies. But for Kuala Lumpur, the decision to bar Israeli citizens is about more than immigration enforcement.
Whether this stance will become increasingly costly amid changing geopolitical dynamics remains uncertain. However, Malaysia appears prepared to absorb those diplomatic costs rather than alter one of the most consistent pillars of its foreign policy.
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 🇧🇳
Establishment of Brunei-Bhutan Diplomatic Relations
by Wira Gregory Ejau, in Bandar Seri Begawan
On July 13, the governments of Brunei Darussalam and the Kingdom of Bhutan signed a Joint Communiqué establishing formal diplomatic relations through their respective Permanent Representatives to the United Nations in New York.
Bhutan is one of the most diplomatically selective sovereign states in the world. With the establishment of relations with Brunei, it now maintains formal ties with 61 countries and the European Union, which is roughly 30% of UN member states. More notably, it has no diplomatic relations with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, or China, which are permanent members of the UN Security Council. These constraints are rooted in Bhutan’s longstanding commitment to preserving sovereignty and avoiding entanglement in great-power competition. Within this framework, the decision to formalise relations with a given state carries weight that it would not in a more expansive diplomatic network.
The communiqué itself offers a shared foundation of deep respect for the institution of the Monarchy. Diplomatic instruments rarely invoke constitutional arrangements as common values, and both Brunei and Bhutan are absolute monarchies with governing frameworks centred on royal authority. Whether this constitutes a genuine normative alignment or diplomatic courtesy is a distinction that is worth observing in the long run.
The symmetries between the two states are especially that of size, such as navigating the pressures of substantially larger neighbours, especially as Bhutan attempts to navigate between India and an unresolved border dispute with China with which it has no formal relations. Both have pursued cautious, selective foreign policies that prioritise sovereignty preservation over the accumulation of partnerships, and have, in different ways, used multilateral forums such as ASEAN for Brunei, SAARC and BIMSTEC for Bhutan as the primary architecture of their international engagement rather than bilateral treaty networks.
Bhutan has been accelerating its Southeast Asian diplomatic engagement in recent years, driven in part by the Gelephu Mindfulness City project. It is an ambitious special economic zone designed to attract investment and reposition Bhutan’s economic geography toward Southeast Asia. Singapore has been the most visible partner in this process; formalising relations with Brunei extends that Southeast Asian thread further, and opens a direct diplomatic channel between an ASEAN member and a SAARC and BIMSTEC state that has, until now, engaged Southeast Asia primarily through third-party capitals.
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 27/07/2026 11:59 PM (UTC +8)
