Malaysia’s push to explore energy blocks off its coast has turned into a five-nation face-off involving American and Chinese warships, raising the risk of a direct confrontation as broader tensions mount between the world’s biggest economies. China has disrupted the efforts of Vietnam, the Philippines – and increasingly Malaysia – to exploit oil, gas and fishing resources off their shores. China claims about 80 per cent of the South China Sea. This is “by far the biggest and most overt challenge yet to Malaysia’s South China Sea energy interests”, said Dr Collin Koh Swee Lean, research fellow at Singapore’s RSIS.