One of the most fruitful diplomatic and socio-economic relationships over the past decade must surely be that between China and countries in Southeast Asia, though not without the occasional hiccup.
The ASEAN member states have enjoyed double-digit growth in their trade with the world’s most populous nation in recent years and it reached a record high of $400.9 billion last year.
Now the third biggest trading partner with China, ASEAN is expected to become the No. 1 trading partner in the next two to three years.
However, the spat involving the Philippines, Vietnam and China over the Spratly Islands in South China Sea has added some uncertainties to the Sino-ASEAN relations, not to mention Malaysia and China also have their own share of woes staking the same claims on several islands in the area.
At least Malaysia did not aggravate the situation, unlike the Philippines and Vietnam which have constantly threatened to wage war with China over the sea dispute.
Based on my observations these years, Malaysia and China have been good buddies. The scene of the then Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein holding Chinese Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu’s hands tightly in a meeting in Beijing last year will surely be something that I will not forget.
The “hands-holding diplomacy” shows the great intention of our Malaysian officials to establish a more personal working relationship with their counterparts.
This is also helped by the positive political polemics in Malaysia where the opposition rarely raised the sea territorial issue or other issues that may harm the Sino-Malaysia relation.
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences academic and international studies division director Zhang Yunling said Malaysia has shown a lot of wisdom in dealing with China.
“They are looking at mutual benefit more when resolving the counter-claim issue in South China Sea. They stress that the rise of China will not threaten Malaysia and other countries in the region.
“They use other ways like the setting up of the China-Malaysia Industrial Park in (Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region’s) Qinzhou city and the Malaysia-China Industrial Park in Kuantan to build on their relationship,” he said.
He said the Sino-Malaysia diplomatic relation had been a shining example for other ASEAN members to emulate at times when tension was growing in the region.
A senior foreign affairs ministry official at the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing, who requested anonymity, said it is important to strengthen guanxi (relationship in Chinese) that they had already established and continue to make Malaysia relevant to China.
“Chinese officials are those who will work together with you if what you do benefits them. If what you do is not relevant or important to them, they will not entertain you no matter how hard you try,” he said.
A senior official from the home ministry who was involved in the setting up of a working group to deal with transnational crime following an agreement signed by both Hishammuddin and Meng last year, said officials from both Malaysian and Chinese sides in the group had been working effectively.
“We have already been exchanging intelligence. One of the good examples is that we and our Chinese counterparts crippled a syndicate involving Nigerian men who claimed that they were retiring officers with top jobs in the United States and eventually cheated money from rich Chinese nationals who are in their 30s and 40s,” he said.
He said Hishammuddin and Meng indeed had a good rapport and now that the latter had been promoted to be a state councilor responsible for law and security matters, it would mean that their relationship would reach a new high point.
“If not for this kind of good rapport and cooperation, the process of laying down the terms and conditions under the agreement and getting down to signing it would have taken five years or even longer than that.
“It has taken Malaysia over 30 years to achieve the status of being a strategic partner to China. Not many countries can claim to be strategic partners cooperating on transnational crime,” he said.
Zhang said the new Chinese leadership which took helm in March were younger and had so far shown that they were aspiring, flexible and not conforming to old practices in dealing with diplomatic issues and such foreign policy would be more sustainable.
“The situation is quite different now in which all parties have to work together for common peace and development. For example, we have the most severe territorial dispute with Vietnam but whenever the situation got tense, Chinese leaders would come out and say that we need to work hard to relax the situation and work together and then the Vietnamese leaders would give a response to China’s call.
“When a territorial dispute intensifies, sometimes people say the ultimate solution is to go to war. After the war, you may get what you want but it will bring about bad consequences. We need to adopt a political approach which requires patience,” he said.
He added that patience was one of the characteristics of oriental culture and it is important to calm down and think of the next course of action when a situation got tense.
Most experts feel that China has been consistent with its foreign policy on territorial disputes be it in South China Sea or Diaoyu Islands ― in which concerning parties should reckon there is a dispute, safeguard their interest in it and resolve it via peaceful development.
By Chow How Ban
Chow How Ban is a columnist of The Star, an English-language paper in Malaysia. He worked for the paper’s Beijing Bureau for six and a half years. ― Ed.
