President Xi Jinping arrives in Malaysia for a key state visit

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe spoke to Peter TC Chang, Former Deputy Director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya.

Transcript

00:00Peter TC Chang is the former deputy director of the Institute of China

00:04Studies at the University of Malaya. Thanks for coming on the program. So what

00:09makes Malaysia strategically important to China? Well Malaysia is to the ASEAN

00:16principle of centrality and ASEAN principle of neutrality and we have

00:22always maintained open free so foreign policy we will not take sides we will

00:29engage with all parties and China appreciate that China has been facing a

00:36lot of pressure from the United States and United States has tend to come to

00:42this part of the world to ask us to choose sides but we continue to

00:47maintain our open policy that we will engage with both the United States and

00:52China and for that reason I think China sees Malaysia in particular and ASEAN

00:58in general as a very strategic partner for itself and for the region. You

01:04mentioned ASEAN of course Malaysia is now a BRICS partner country and as the chair

01:10of talks in Washington Malaysia is that key player in ASEAN's response to the US

01:14tariffs I'm wondering are they now having to maybe you know pick sides are they

01:18out as Malaysia at a strategic crossroads. We will not be taking sides we will be

01:28taking our own sides we have decided to do it and see how to respond to the

01:33terrorists as you know the terrorists has been there's a lot of uncertainties

01:38right now it's been under a pause for 90 days we're not exactly sure what would

01:44happen after 90 days what Prime Minister Ano Ibrahim has stated is that ASEAN as a

01:49whole will want to coordinate our response we will have to meet and try to get

01:56together get our act together and try to find a way to respond collectively and we

02:02see China as strategic as well in helping us to cope with these uncertainties so

02:08right now as far as we are concerned we are not taking sides our sense of

02:13neutrality maintains it maintains the same and we will continue to engage with

02:19any parties that are willing to to trade with us according to the rules based

02:25order but this trip is quite important is it isn't it I mean where can we expect

02:31maybe closer cooperation and collaboration is it on big infrastructure

02:35projects as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative for example absolutely I mean

02:42the the Belt and Road Initiative actually Malaysia was a launchpad of the Belt and

02:46Road Initiative about 15 years ago it started off with as brick and mortars and

02:52infrastructures but over the over the years it has evolved it has evolved into a green

02:58BRI digital digital BRI and then help Silk Road and we have education BRI as well I think in

03:08this visit President Xi and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim will probably focus a little bit

03:13more on the digital BRI as segment where AI and and semiconductor microchips will

03:21come will feature quite quite prominently in terms of the new sort of

03:28cooperations and new new deals that will be signed

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