Malaysia’s Anwar faces balancing act on first China trip

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Malaysian Anwar Ibrahim is expected to navigate between deepening economic ties with his country’s largest trading partner and tackling thorny issues such as the South China Sea during his first visit to China as prime minister.

Anwar will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday as part of a four-day visit that will also include talks with Chinese business leaders and Premier Li Qiang.

Anwar’s talks with Xi are expected to focus on “concrete measures that can be taken on trade, political cooperation, prevention of corruption and issues of civilization,” Malaysian Foreign Minister Zambry Abdul Kadir said on Wednesday.

Anwar, who arrived in Beijing on Wednesday, will also meet with Chairman of the National People’s Congress Zhao Leji and executives from the China Communications Construction Company, the contractor of the Malaysian East Coast Rail Link project.

Anwar, who was elected Malaysia’s 10th Prime Minister in November, is making his visit against the backdrop of an escalating trade and technology war between the United States and China that has hampered Malaysia’s efforts to maintain positive relations with the world’s two biggest superpowers. , complicated.

China has been Malaysia’s largest trading partner for 14 consecutive years, with bilateral trade worth $203.6 billion by 2022, but Kuala Lumpur also enjoys close economic and security ties with the US – two-way trade totaled $72.9 billion last year dollars – those countless Chinese companies that are part of the global supply chain.

Malaysia is the world’s sixth largest semiconductor exporter, accounting for 6.3 percent of the world total. The chips, critical components of everyday electronics, have been a prime target of US sanctions aimed at hindering China’s technology sector.

If Malaysia is to boost cooperation with China, especially in the technology sector, it will need to consider the possibility of pressure from the US and how it can “navigate the delicate line of promoting technology cooperation for national interests while protecting both the US and China”. can convince”. that such cooperation will have no political influence on bilateral relations,” Hoo Chiew Ping, a lecturer in international relations at the National University of Malaysia, told Al Jazeera.

Further US sanctions could potentially affect some Malaysian companies that are part of China’s supply chain, said Ngeow Chow Bing, the director of Universiti Malaya’s Institute of China Studies.

“So far that hasn’t happened on a large scale, but that’s something we have to watch out for,” Ngeow told Al Jazeera. Shahriman Lockman, director of the Kuala Lumpur-based Institute for Strategic and International Studies (ISIS), said Malaysia will “just have to adapt” and try to find opportunities even as US-China relations become more complicated.

“Anwar knows this,” Lockman told Al Jazeera. “In China, Anwar will no doubt be effusive about the relationship. That’s just what people do in Beijing. After all, this year marks the 10th anniversary of the comprehensive strategic partnership between Malaysia and China. And next year will be 50 years of diplomatic relations.”

For Southeast Asia, which has historically sought to balance its relations with major powers, the rivalry between the US and China has been a blessing and a curse.

Malaysia is one of the biggest beneficiaries of trade and investment diversion as US and Chinese companies seek to diversify their geographic exposure to trade restrictions. A 2019 Nomura report found that Malaysia was the fourth-biggest winner of the US-China trade war behind Vietnam, Taiwan and Chile, with exports of waste and scrap alloys, natural gas and benzene all benefiting from the tensions.

China’s total direct investment in Malaysia rose to 9.7 billion Malaysian ringgit ($2.2 billion) in 2022, up 23.5 percent from 7.9 billion ringgit ($1.8 billion) in 2021 The US was Malaysia’s top source of investment last year, with an investment of 43.9 billion ringgit ($9.9 billion), followed by Singapore and Japan.

“Anwar is likely to promote Malaysia as a destination of choice for Chinese investors looking to mitigate the impact of the trade war and find new markets in the region,” said Yeah Kim Leng, an economics professor at Malaysia’s Sunway University and a member of an advisory committee for Anwar, Al Jazeera told.

“Since Malaysia imports more from China than it exports, it’s a good opportunity for the Prime Minister to push China to import more from Malaysia,” Yeah said.

Yeah added that Malaysia could also make use of China’s rapidly advancing digital technologies to improve the productivity and competitiveness of its small and medium-sized sectors.

Analysts suggest Anwar will be careful about raising sensitive issues during his trip, including China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic minority Muslims, whose plight he highlighted during his many years as opposition leader.

“I believe Anwar will approach China pragmatically. As prime minister and no longer just leader of the opposition, Anwar can no longer afford to make less constructive references when it comes to China. It just is what it is,” says Lockman of the Institute of Strategic and International Studies.

So I don’t believe he will raise the issue of the Uyghurs, although he will probably underline the need to respect international law in the South China Sea. Anwar has to think about Malaysia first.”

Ngeow of Universiti Malaya said the possibility of Anwar raising the Uyghur issue privately is “quite low” but cannot be ruled out. However, Ngeow added that the South China Sea dispute — Beijing claims sovereignty over more than 90 percent of the strategic waterway despite the territorial claims of several Southeast Asian countries, including Malaysia — is likely to be raised privately and publicly. will be noticed using coy language.

China’s coast guard vessels have regularly entered Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, where Malaysia’s state-owned company Petronas drills gas and oil for hydrocarbons.

In 2021, 16 Chinese military aircraft came within 60 nautical miles (112 km) of the state of Sarawak, prompting Kuala Lumpur to summon the Chinese ambassador and accuse Beijing of posing a “serious threat to national sovereignty and flight safety”. The Chinese embassy in Kuala Lumpur said at the time that its aircraft was exercising “freedom of overflight in the airspace concerned”.

Hoo of the University of Malaysia believes it will be crucial for Anwar to discuss the issue of the South China Sea during his trip. “An important point is to prevent unavoidable clashes at sea between the Coast Guard and to ensure that incidents such as the PLAAF (People’s Liberation Army Air Force) invasion over Malaysian maritime airspace will not reoccur in private conversations,” Hoo said. .