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’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.
“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”.
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.
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.
“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.
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.”
The more you tighten your grip, the more
star systemscountries will slip through your fingers. Every year, more and more middle income countries that were unaligned are buddying up with China and the ones that were buddying up with the US are playing the field. China is keenly attentive to this global battle over hearts and minds while Americans are too preoccupied to even notice, and don’t care when they do.A lot of Americans have 0 concept of how open trade has benefited them. They just think that they don’t need the rest of the world and we’ll just do it on our own. It’s unbelievably stupid but it’s unfortunately how a sizable portion of the US thinks.
A lot of Americans think ‘free trade’ means all countries involved are on an equal footing. That’s what it should mean, and what the term looks like when taken at face value. Most don’t recognize that ‘free trade’ as the US uses it means free for corporations to exploit the global south through the use of Neo-colonialism. It means coercing the global south to privatize their natural resources, become indebted in the process, and be forced to let foreign corporations control and exploit the local labor force down to wage slavery. Crippling their economies as western corporations maximize profit and resource extraction at the expense of the local government and population.
Saudi Arabia for years wanted tech transfer from the US, and the US would pressure it to normalize with Israel as a prerequisite along with other “reforms” without guarantees. Now they have tech transfers with China.
One of the public reasons the UAE normalized with Israel was to get the F-35. They still don’t have it.
It’s so funny that the media has to make Trump the problem. I mean, of course he is making things a bunch worse, but acting like this is a new trend in any way is fucking stupid and silly. China stay winning.
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China’s a better partner than Trump
the bar’s in hell
Shouldn’t be that hard of a sell to make I guess
especially now with the insane tariffs, and the unreliability of even being able to trade with them these days without some gotcha move.
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Just had to put in some racism in there huh
Somehow it’s always there.
There was no racism in there. As much as you wanted it, there wasn’t
I hope Malaysia doesn’t fall for this bullshit. Neither the US or China are good trade partners. Just use them until you don’t have to rely on them anymore.
China has been doing a lot of economical imperialism with their belt and road initiative. The skyscraper collapse in Thailand should have been a wake-up call that China does not have the best of interests in mind and is only looking for global economic power.
China is a good trading partner, but it isn’t a charity either. BRI is not Imperialism, nor is it charity. BRI allows China to lower shipping costs and increase trade, it gives them more customers to buy their products. Rather than the US, which gives out loans with clauses requiring privatization of key resources that the US can dominate with its immense finance Capital, China focuses on building people up so that they can benefit China in the long run as customers.
There is no real alternative third option between the US and China, unless you want to do something like Cuba or the DPRK are forced into through sanctions and embargo. When comparing the largest and most brutal Empire in the world to a country that focuses on creating more customers to fulfill its own intetests via building up infrastructure, it’s clear which is the better option.
The “neither Washington nor Beijing” crowd implicitly approves of the current US hegemony as there is no alternative fronted by that.
The Atlantic, 2021: The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth
One skyscraper collapsed by a major earthquake—while still under construction and therefore not yet seismically sound—doesn’t prove anything about anything.
Oh I didn’t see this community was on .ml.
They celebrated the completion of the structure:
https://www.khaosodenglish.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/CREC-1.jpgConstruction supervisors of the State Audit Office building holding a sign written in Thai and Chinese that reads: ‘Celebration ceremony for the completion of structural work, Construction Project of the (New) Office of the Auditor General,’ CREC, April 3, 2024… อ่านข่าวต้นฉบับได้ที่ : https://www.khaosodenglish.com/featured/2025/03/31/probe-focuses-thai-chinese-venture-in-bangkoks-fatal-building-collapse/
It should have been seismically sound because the structure was completed. It was mostly due to substandard rebar:
Fortune, 2025: Thai authorities accuse developers of using substandard steel for a Bangkok skyscraper…And ofcourse because I don’t live in willful ignorance like most .ml tankies:
Asia Times, 2025: China’s Belt and Road crediblity collapsing fast in ThailandThere are also videos of Chinese workers retrieving the documents out of ruble and running off with them. I could share these videos but it would just cost me time to find them again while the previous information should have already proven my point.
The collapse is a tragedy, and it needs to be thoroughly vetted and investigated. Looks like the investigation is ongoing, and the story is actively developing. However, this doesn’t translate to any of the following points:
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That China is Imperialist
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That construction with Chinese involvement (this project was a joint-effort) is worse on average than other available options
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That China isn’t still the best option among those available to Thailand, Malaysia, and countries in the Global South seeking development in general
Ultimately, your original claims of China being a “bad trading partner” and is doing “economic imperialism” are backed soley by an incredibly recent tragedy that is still undergoing investigation. Even if 100% of the claims posited in your articles are correct, ie that substandard materials were deliberately used and that workers actually ran off with documents for the purpose of hampering investigation efforts, those are all problems that can be dealt with via thorough audits and policy correction.
Engineering and construction failures, by quantity, are fairly common, and when you’re one of the largest construction firms on the planet, it is all but certain that failure isn’t a matter of if, but when. In this manner, it is important to know why certain failures end up emphasized in media and which ones end up going under the radar. Western, english-speaking media has an invested reason to discredit China right now during the tariff war as public opinion on China is shifting to a positive direction, especially since the US passed 1.6 billion dollars in funding anti-PRC media.
That does not excuse any possible malpractice. This is a tragedy, and those responsible, Chinese or not, should be held accountable and punished. Corrective action needs to be taken. However, the investigation is ongoing and the geopolitical context makes it an especially convenient story to signal boost despite still being a developing story.
What matters most is the frequency of failure, and if proper investigations and corrective measures are taken. If the investigation concludes that CREC is responsible, yet no corrective justice occurs and no policy changes implemented, that is when we can begin to speak of China being an untrustworthy trade partner. Using a tragedy as ammo while the facts are still being uncovered leans more towards Sinophobia than genuine concern for the well-being of Malaysian and Thai peoples.
Also, as a side-note, complaining about Communists when commenting on a community with quite a few Communists is pretty childish, and ends up hurting your credibility more than helping you prove a point.
Also, as a side-note, complaining about Communists when commenting on a community with quite a few Communists is pretty childish, and ends up hurting your credibility more than helping you prove a point.
Inb4 “But tank eez aren’t real communists, they’re muh redfash muhthoritarians.”
Of course, lol. Somehow nothing ever seems to count as Communism as nothing can ever measure up to what they want, anything short of perfection is impure and thus an imposter or deciever.
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