How China is Attempting to Overcome Its Malacca Dilemma

“Strait of Malacca highlighted” by Embyarby, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz caused by the US-Iran war has sent shockwaves across global markets, with the Chief of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, warning that the resulting energy crisis might be “more severe than the shocks of 1973, 1979 and 2008 combined”. The current conflict drew increased scrutiny to the importance of maritime chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz, yet further East lies a waterway that might soon become the source of an even bigger contingency – the Strait of Malacca. 

Connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the Strait of Malacca is only less than 3 kilometres at its narrowest point and presents itself as the world’s busiest shipping lane, hosting over 40% of all global trade. For China, however, the importance is even more acute: 90% of all Chinese trade, 80% of oil and 62% of Liquified Natural Gas imports are sea born, with most of it passing through this single chokepoint. It is precisely this critical vulnerability that Hu Jintao, the former president of China, termed “The Malacca Dilemma”. The concept refers to the danger posed by a total blockade of the strait in the event of a military confrontation with the United States and its allies. Indeed, the threat is far from a hypothetical concern, as evidenced by the robust American deployment in the Pacific, especially its extensive military presence in Singapore, right at the mouth of the Malacca Strait. This is exactly why, for the past two decades, China has been discreetly and steadily building up its capacity to negate the Malacca Dilemma and mitigate the threat posed by it. In order to achieve this, Beijing has pursued a multi-pronged strategy to bypass the strait entirely by developing overland energy corridors among its allies on the Asian mainland. 

The Russian Pivot

One of the most significant ways China has been trying to address its Malacca Dilemma is by tapping into its “no limits partnership” with Moscow. In the dimension of energy, the relationship is indeed symbiotic and complementary – Russia has an abundance of energy resources with few reliable markets to export it to, while China has massive demand for energy, with few reliable markets to import it from. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has further exasperated this dynamic. Cut off from international markets, especially its traditional European buyers, the Kremlin found a willing recipient in Beijing, refocusing its exports toward China, even at the cost of selling at a significant discount.

The primary vehicle for this is the “Power of Siberia” pipeline, which delivers Russian gas and oil to China directly overland, rendering it impossible to be intercepted by the US navy. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has dramatically intensified its exports through this route, with an astonishing 273% increase in gas exports between 2021-2025 and 90% increase of oil deliveries between 2021-2023. In addition, the construction of a second pipeline, “Power of Siberia 2” is being planned, which would further augment this energy corridor.

Of note are also the developments in the Arctic, where both Beijing and Moscow have heavily invested into Russian Arctic LNG infrastructure. This new corridor, “the Northern Sea Route” entirely bypasses the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, allowing China to receive vital energy imports while sidelining the Strait of Malacca. 

Myanmar and the String of Pearls

Another significant pillar of China’s strategy to reduce its critical dependency on the Malacca Strait is the so-called “String of Pearls”. This refers to the network of ports, infrastructure projects and bases that China has built or invested in across the Indian Ocean to project power in the region, and more importantly, provide an alternate route for critical imports. One of the cornerstones of this strategy is the Chinese ally – Myanmar.

Myanmar occupies the exact overland space between the Indian Ocean and China. For this reason, Beijing invested into the main port of Kyaukphu and built oil and gas pipelines running from the ocean terminal directly to China proper. Together, these projects allow oil and gas from the Middle East and Africa to be unloaded in Myanmar and pumped directly to China overland, bypassing the Strait of Malacca entirely. This vital corridor has been the reason for the continued Chinese support for the ruling military junta in Myanmar, with plans for a deep-sea port, railway links and additional pipeline capacity underway. 

The Pakistan Corridor: Over the Roof of the World

Similarly to Myanmar, another Chinese ally, Pakistan, occupies a key position within Beijing’s String of Pearls strategy in the Indian Ocean. Pakistan, located precisely between the mouth of the Persian Gulf and China proper, provides a uniquely advantageous transit corridor to deliver Middle Eastern energy resources directly to China overland without ever even approaching the Strait of Malacca. This route not only bypasses the strategic vulnerability, but also cuts the overall shipping distance by 78%.

Oil and LNG from the Persian Gulf is unloaded at Pakistan’s strategic deep-water port of Gwadar, before being carried through the length of the country, until it is delivered to China’s Xinjiang province. Such is the strategic value of this corridor, that China was willing to invest billions to build a route through some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet, the Karakorum mountains – culminating in the highest international highway in the world, hosting traffic at an elevation of almost 5000 meters. 

Despite the advantages of the corridor through Pakistan and its proximity to the Middle East, it cannot fully negate the Malacca Dilemma due to a host of limitations. Political instability within Pakistan, border conflicts with India and Afghanistan and the difficulty of the terrain at the second highest mountain range in the world, all contribute to throttling the capacity of this route.

It is clear that throughout the decades, China has sought to mitigate its critical vulnerability through the Strait of Malacca by pursuing a multi-pronged diversification effort centered on its Asian allies. By expanding its energy partnership with Russia and building overland energy corridors in its allies, namely Myanmar and Pakistan, Beijing is seeking to reduce risk and create redundancies in the event of a military confrontation with the United States. None of these measures replace the sheer volume passing through the Strait of Malacca, but they do present clear and intentional steps toward reducing dependency and building capacity.