Quora Answer: What is the Likelihood of Singapore Buying Territory from Malaysia, Like USA Did with Alaska?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What is the likelihood of Singapore buying territory from Malaysia, like USA did with Alaska?”

Malaysia is as likely to sell Singapore land, as Donald John Trump is to becoming a Mexican citizen.  Land has an emotive pull on people, and selling territory in these times of nations states, and cultivated jingoism, is political suicide for any government, especially in Malaysia.  This is evidenced by the various disputes, some of which went all the way to the Permanent Court of Arbitration.  There have been diplomatic spats over uninhabited islands between Singapore and Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, Malaysia and Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines, Indonesia and Philippines, and Brunei and Malaysia.

We must also consider that much of the land is heavily populated.  Whilst Singapore would certainly be interested in buying land, they are not interested in upsetting the ethnic ratio of the citizenry.  They are not going to accept tens of thousands of Malaysians as citizens, and Malaysia is not willing to evict people from the land that is worth buying.  If we consider uninhabited islands, the issue is that these islands extend exclusive economic zones, and control of littoral waters, in an island archipelago that straddles the busiest series of shipping lanes in the world.  They have outsize strategic importance.

If buying land was an option, it would make more economic and strategic sense to buy the Riau Islands, including Batam and Bintan, from Indonesia, than buy parts of Johor and have to deal with a constitutional monarchy.