Nervous Malaysia eyes China
dancefloor By Prashanth
Parameswaran
Earlier this month, China and
Malaysia held the first ever defense and security
consultation between their two defense ministries
in Kuala Lumpur. The landmark event was just the
latest in a series of advances which suggest that,
on the surface, Sino-Malaysian relations are at an
all-time high.
Personal relationships
between leaders on both sides have rarely been
better, frequent bilateral visits have been made
by both sides, and cooperation in flourishing in a
variety of areas beyond traditional ones. Yet,
while Sino-Malaysian relations have continued to
strengthen over the last few years, divergences on
security issues have remained and Kuala Lumpur
continues to
pursue a hedging
strategy amid the uncertainty posed by China's
rise.
Malaysia and China have come a long
way since the Cold War days. Back then, Malaysia,
which had a significant ethnic Chinese minority,
was deeply suspicious of Chinese Communist Party's
(CCP) ties to the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM)
and Beijing's links to the Soviet Union. This fear
began to subside gradually and Malaysia became the
first Southeast Asian country to normalize
diplomatic relations with China in 1974 and played
a critical role in encouraging the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to begin a
dialogue with China after the end of the Cold War.
Since then, Malaysia's leaders have
continued to pursue a hedging strategy towards
China. On the one hand, they have sought closer
ties with Beijing because of its crucial role in
strengthening the Malaysian economy and their
domestic legitimacy at home as a multi-racial
state with a sizable ethnic Chinese population as
well as China's growing status in Asia and the
world. At the same time, however, Kuala Lumpur
also has sought to maintain and strengthen
economic and security links with other Asian and
Western powers to varying degrees to keep their
options open given the uncertainty surrounding
China's rise.
China, for its part, has
also placed great emphasis on boosting its
relationship with Malaysia not only for economic
reasons but in recognition of Kuala Lumpur's
historic role in promoting engagement with Beijing
as well as its influence in regional forums,
particularly ASEAN. Cultivating good relations
with Malaysia, from Beijing's perspective, may
help ease concerns about "China threat"
perceptions that continue to persist in the region
due to both the sheer structural asymmetry between
China and ASEAN states as well as disagreements on
specific issues such as territorial disputes in
the South China Sea.
While Sino-Malaysian
relations also have fared pretty well under his
predecessors, they have reached new heights under
Malaysia's current Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Chinese leaders never forget that it was Najib's
father and Malaysia's second Prime Minister Tun
Abdul Razak who made the landmark visit to Beijing
to normalize relations in 1974. The bilateral
relationship, thus, has seen more than its fair
share of symbolism and gestures as well as
high-level visits. Najib made China his second
state visit after assuming office in April 2009
following a visit to Singapore, which attested to
Beijing's importance.
Moreover, President
Hu Jintao's visit to Malaysia in November that
year was the first state visit by a Chinese leader
to Malaysia in 15 years. Najib also visited China
in 2011 and 2012 and appointed the chairman of the
Malaysia-China Business Council Ong Ka Ting as his
special envoy to China, while Premier Wen Jiabao
visited Malaysia in 2011. Plans for commemorating
the 40th anniversary of the establishment of
diplomatic ties in 2014 are already well underway
with both sides agreeing to designate 2014
"Malaysia-China Friendship Year" last month and
China loaning a pair of panda bears to Malaysia in
June as a symbol of friendship. The flurry of
diplomatic activity has also breathed momentum
into the economic relationship. As the global
financial crisis slashed Western demand and
plunged Malaysia's export oriented economy into
recession in 2009, Najib knew that getting the
Malaysian economy back on track was the greatest
determinant of his political future, particularly
given his party's weak showing in the 2008 general
election.
Realizing that China would have
to be at the forefront of any Malaysian economic
revival, Najib began to boost cooperation with
Beijing in a variety of areas. He emphasized
boosting Chinese investment into Malaysia and
broadening the base of Sino-Malaysian trade, while
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao suggested a five-point
proposal for further enhancing economic relations
during his April 2011 visit that included
deepening cooperation in areas like finance,
infrastructure, education, science and technology.
The efforts of both sides have yielded
impressive results. The most visible symbol of
economic cooperation - a joint-venture project
between Malaysia and China called Qinzhou
Industrial Park which began in 2011 - was
completed in just a year, which in Najib's words
attests to the "commitment on both sides to the
ever broader and deeper economic ties". Following
the project launch, Najib also proposed the
establishment of a sister industrial park in
Kuantan to further boost the relationship. More
generally, China-Malaysia trade rose more than 20%
from 2010 to reach US$90 billion in 2011, and is
expected to reach more than $100 billion by the
end of this year. China has been Malaysia's
largest trade partner, second-largest export
destination and largest source of imports since
2009, while Malaysia is China's eighth-largest
trade partner and the largest among ASEAN nations.
Cooperation over the last few years has
extended beyond the traditional economic realm to
include people-to-people ties as well. On tourism,
the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel
Agents (MATTA) and the China Muslim Travel
Association (CMTA) inked a cooperation deal in
August 2011 designed to remove barriers for Muslim
travelers and boost collaboration between the two
associations. China consistently has been a
top-ten tourism generating market for Malaysia
with around 1.3 million Chinese visiting annually,
while around 1.4 million Malaysians flock to
Beijing every year.
There also has been a
particular focus on youth, since "it is the young
people", according to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao,
"who will carry the future mission of enhancing
friendship and deepening cooperation between our
two countries". In April 2011, China and Malaysia
signed a mutual recognition agreement (MRA) in
higher education that would facilitate the
official acknowledgement of academic higher
education qualifications.
That deal was
hailed as a great boost to people-to people ties
and was expected to raise both the number of
students studying between the two countries as
well as partnerships between educational
institutions. Malaysia's full list of 54 public
and private higher institutions is likely to be
approved by China by the end of this year, while
Beijing already has seen more than a hundred
institutions approved with hundreds more awaiting
recognition.
Cooperation also has improved
on security and defense issues. China and Malaysia
signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on
fighting cross-border crimes in November 2010
covering issues like human trafficking, terrorism
and drugs, and a bilateral agreement was also
inked last month which could see more
collaboration on newer forms of crime such as
telecommunication fraud. Additionally, on
September 11, the security dimension of the
relationship received an upgrade when China and
Malaysia held their first ever defense and
security consultation between the two defense
ministries.
The consultation, chaired by
Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese
People's Liberation Army (PLA) Ma Xiaotian and
Secretary General of the Malaysian Defense
Ministry Ismail Ahmad, saw both countries agree to
maintain high-level exchanges between the PLA and
the Malaysian Armed Forces, strengthen
communication in training cooperation, and deepen
cooperation with respect to non-traditional
security issues. The consultation is expected to
be held annually.
Yet, this impressive
record of all-round cooperation masks the
uncertainty Malaysia continues to feel about
China' rise and the hedging effort Kuala Lumpur
has pursued alongside its engagement with Beijing.
While this hedging strategy has been in place
since the end of the Cold War, Malaysia has had to
be even more adroit in practicing it in recent
years in an environment marked by China's greater
economic and military heft, uncertainty about the
sustainability of US commitment in the region and
the looming threat of US-China rivalry - all the
while realizing that aligning or distancing itself
from any side too soon may prematurely incur costs
and preclude benefits.
For now, Malaysia's
leaders continue to believe that cozying up to
China yields important immediate benefits
necessary to cement their domestic political
position, while Beijing does not yet pose a direct
threat to Malaysia's security interests. Hence,
the emphasis has been on pragmatic cooperation
with Beijing now while simultaneously maintaining
key security and economic links with other powers
and boosting ASEAN unity in preparation for any
threatening scenarios later.
Specifically,
this strategy has manifested itself most visibly
with respect to the South China Sea, which remains
a thorn in the side of Sino-Malaysian relations.
Kuala Lampur has staked its claim to a dozen
geographical features in the contested Spratly
Islands and has occupied five of them since 1979.
Though Malaysia's defense establishment is still
wary of the South China Sea issue, its leaders
have mostly shied away from directly confronting
China on contested claims now, choosing instead to
quietly protect Malaysian claims in the South
China Sea by upgrading naval and aerial
capabilities since the 1980s to prepare for the
future.
China's growing assertiveness on
territorial questions over the last few years has
seen Malaysia attempt to counter this behavior
through various means without direct
confrontation. For instance, in 2009, Malaysia and
Vietnam presented a joint submission to the UN
Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf
(CLCS) in 2009, which Beijing still objected to
vociferously and called "illegal and invalid". In
the unprecedented case when ASEAN failed to issue
a joint communiqu้ in July because some members
did not want to include references to the South
China Sea (some allege at China's request),
Malaysia firmly said in private that not referring
to the disputes was "totally unacceptable". [1]
Malaysian leaders also have stressed
repeatedly the importance of a united ASEAN in
standing up to China on the South China Sea
question, and they have on more than one occasion
urged Washington privately to pay greater
attention to the issue. [2] They also have
stressed to Beijing privately the importance of
working towards a code of conduct in the South
China Sea and supporting ASEAN integration,
including at the 2nd Annual Strategic Consultation
between the two sides in August this year. They
also have balanced that, however, by stating they
will not allow this to disrupt the overall
relationship. As Najib succinctly put it in his
keynote speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue last
year, "while I remain fully committed to the
common ASEAN position in terms of our engagement
with China on the South China Sea, I am equally
determined to ensure that our bilateral
relationship remains unaffected" [3].
While Najib has managed to walk this
tightrope in Sino-Malaysian relations quite well
thus far, it is a risky and delicate balance that
could be disrupted by several factors in the
future. A deterioration of relations between the
United States and China could place Kuala Lumpur
in the awkward position of being in the middle of
a great power rivalry or, worse, having to pick
sides. China's rising military might and growing
economic influence in Malaysia may cause Beijing
to overplay its hand and try to impinge on the
autonomy Kuala Lumpur craves.
Although the
United States continues to assure its Asian
partners that it will continue to have a strong
and sustained presence in the Asia-Pacific despite
concerns about China's rise abroad and America's
economic woes at home, any sign that this
commitment is waning - whether perceived or real -
may undermine Malaysia's faith in Washington as a
critical balancer in its hedging strategy. At
home, Najib's party also faces elections before
April next year in which a clear victory is hardly
assured, which could have profound effects on
domestic stability and policy continuity.
Until its tried and true hedging strategy
fails, however, Malaysia will continue to utilize
it, reaping the benefits of cooperation with China
now but always with a wary eye towards the future.
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