Malaysia’s push to explore energy blocks off its coast has turned into a five-nation face off involving U.S. and Chinese warships, raising the risk of a direct confrontation as broader tensions grow between the world’s biggest economies. This is “by far the biggest and most overt challenge yet to Malaysia’s South China Sea energy interests,” said Collin Koh Swee Lean, a research fellow at RSIS. “We must avoid unintended, accidental incidents in these waters,” he said.