The 29th edition of the Southeast Asian Games opens in Kuala Lumpur the capital city of Malaysia. Fencing competitions were first included in 1987 in Jakarta with only 3 out of the eleven member countries participating in the sport. This year's fencing competitions in the biennial games includes fencers from nine countries namely: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Only Laos and Timor Leste have not sent competitors in the SEA Games.
Since 1987, fencing has been a regular competitive sport in the SEA Games programme, except when the SEAG were held in Brunei 1999, Laos 2009 and Myanmar in 2013. Only individual events were played in the 2001 games and now 2017 both in Malaysia.
Fencing is active in the region with the biennial SEA Games and the Southeast Asian Fencing Championships also every two year but in between the SEAG.