Xi arrives in Malaysia with a message: China’s a better partner than Trump

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – China’s President Xi Jinping has arrived in Malaysia as part of a Southeast Asian tour which is seen as delivering a personal message that Beijing is a more reliable trading partner than the United States amid a bruising trade war with Washington.

Xi arrived in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, on Tuesday evening in what is his first visit to Malaysia since 2013. He flew in from Vietnam where he had signed dozens of trade cooperation agreements in Hanoi on everything from artificial intelligence to rail development.

On touching down, Xi said that deepening “high-level strategic cooperation” was good for the common interests of both China and Malaysia, and good for peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the world”, according to the official Malaysian news agency Bernama.

Xi’s three-country tour and his “message” that Beijing is Southeast Asia’s better friend than the truculent administration of US President Donald Trump comes as many countries in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc are unhappy with their treatment after the US imposed huge tariffs on countries around the world.

“This is a very significant visit. You can read many things into it,” said Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, a former Malaysian ambassador to the US and minister of legal affairs.

“China is telling us they are a reliable trading partner, more than the US. We never had problems dealing with them,” Abdul Aziz told Al Jazeera.

“Under PM Anwar, Malaysia is getting very much closer [to China]. It’s a good thing,” he added, noting that “in the long run”, Washington’s “influence will be reduced”.

With China, however, trade relations and diplomatic ties are getting stronger and both countries are benefitting, the former ambassador said.

“We are very focused on China. That’s our mentality,” he said.

Washington hit Malaysia with a 24 percent trade tariff, accusing it of imposing a 47 percent tariff on US imports, a rate that Malaysian officials rejected.

Trump has more recently brought in a 90-day moratorium on the highest US tariffs imposed on countries around the world. Instead, they face a 10 percent tariff on goods exported to the US. That is except for China, which has been hit with levies of 145 percent on its goods.

‘Bypass America’

Xi will be in Kuala Lumpur for three days, during which he will meet with Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim ibni Iskandar and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and attend state banquets before heading to Cambodia on Thursday.

During his earlier visit to Vietnam, Xi urged Hanoi and China to “jointly oppose hegemonism, unilateralism and protectionism” and pushed for “economic globalisation that is more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all,” the official Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.

Trump was quoted by The Associated Press news agency as saying that China and Vietnam were trying “to figure out, how do we screw the United States of America?”.

Xi’s visit to Malaysia is in part an effort to “reinforce” the view that China can “offer to bypass America”, said James Chin, professor of Asian studies at the University of Tasmania in Australia, via a different international order such as BRICS – the 10-country intergovernmental organisation comprising Brazil, Russia, India and China, among others.

There is also the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) free trade agreement – arguably the largest in the world – of which all 10 ASEAN nations are members along with China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

“Basically, this is all architectured to build a new international order… Trump has given China the excuse to push harder amongst countries around the world, especially developing countries,” Chin said.

“One of the things they [the Chinese] are trying to do is to set up a bilateral trading system where they can stop using US dollars. Any country that trades with China can do a currency swap [where] you pay in your own currency or swap with the [Chinese] renminbi,” he added.

‘We make money’ with China

Of the three countries Xi chose to visit this week, analysts said Malaysia is deemed to be the most important for China, given its sizeable 32 million population, its developing high-tech base and its current chairmanship of ASEAN. China is also Malaysia’s largest trading partner since 2009, and in 2024, China-Malaysia trade reached $212bn.

“China hopes to jack up trade with Malaysia, which will make up for the expected downgrading of exports to the US,” said Willy Wo-Lap Lam, a senior China analyst with the US-based Jamestown Foundation and author of the book, From Confucius to Xi Jinping.

“Politically, Malaysia has a lot of influence among all 10 ASEAN states,” Lam said. “Including how countries that have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea should respond to Beijing’s aggressive tactics in bolstering its hold over.”

Alfred Muluan Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, agreed, saying that Beijing also views Malaysia as being within its traditional sphere of influence, regionally.

That includes economically in terms of Chinese investments and the “China Plus One” strategy, which involves Chinese companies diversifying their manufacturing bases and supply chains and setting up plants outside of China.

Beijing sees the establishment of business enterprises in Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries as a way “to spread” China’s influence, Wu said.

Ei Sun Oh, principal adviser at the Pacific Research Center of Malaysia, a think tank, also believes that Xi’s visit is about encouraging Kuala Lumpur to look more towards Beijing and “not unduly take the US side”, which is something that may suit Malaysia, too.

“Geopolitically, Malaysia might still toy with the idea of having a fling with China to deliberately antagonise the US over very remote issues such as the Middle Eastern conflict,” said Oh, referring to Muslim-majority Malaysia’s staunch support for the Palestinian cause.

But, more fundamentally, Malaysia is more interested in doing good business and is “dying to get some more investments from China and gain greater market access to China”.

Abdul Aziz, the former Malaysian ambassador to the US, agreed.

“If we are coming closer to China, it is because we make money” with China, he said.