Malaysia’s defence ministry on Thursday (Aug 10) denied a report claiming that China has offered Putrajaya rocket launchers and a radar system that will be based in Johor.

Responding to a query on whether the AR3 would affect the Singapore-Malaysia military equation, Dr Wu Shang-su, a research fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies’ (RSIS) military studies programme said: “(The AR3) is not a new system, and there are various countermeasures available against it.”

Dr Wu added: “In addition, Singapore has the experience of responding to Astros II with some added capabilities. A similar challenge would not be new for Singaporean defence planners.”

RSIS senior fellow and military transformation programme coordinator Richard Bitzinger added that if indeed there was such an offer, “the Chinese probably did this as a way to use Malaysia to get further engaged in selling arms to the region”.

“China’s defence industry is becoming increasingly capable in certain limited niches and it wants to make money,” he said.