After the Philippines, now Malaysia embraces China
Beijing
MALAYSIA'S prime minister arrived in China on Monday with warm words for his hosts, a thirst for Chinese money and, for the first time, a promise of significantly closer defence ties with the purchase of Chinese naval coastal patrol ships.
Najib Razak called himself a "true friend" of China, determined to take their relationship to "new heights" - echoing the pro-China outreach by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte just two weeks ago when he proclaimed a "separation" from his country's long-time US-oriented policies.
The twin nods towards China reinforces the regional narrative of American decline and China's inexorable rise. It also showcases Beijing's apparent ability to buy off rivals over disputed territory in the South China Sea, which China claims as its own despite strong objections from the Pentagon and US allies in the region.
"Malaysia being a South China Sea claimant, and hot on the heels of Duterte, there is an obvious symbolism there," said Euan Graham, director of the international security programme at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. "In the maritime geopolitical aspect, it's almost back to dominoes. The Philippines has caved and Malaysia looks wobbly."
Malaysia is already China's closest trading partner in South-east Asia. The naval deal, prematurely announced on the Malaysian Ministry of Defence's Facebook page last week and later deleted, will add a significant security element to that relationship, observers said.
Part of the reason is domestic politics. Malaysian ties to the US were strained after the Justice Department filed lawsuits in an investigation into money laundering at a state investment fund linked to Mr Najib. That scandal has made Mr Najib unwelcome in Western capitals, and depressed Western investment into the country, which has a large Chinese minority.
Mr Najib will be discussing a high-speed rail project as well as real estate and energy deals with China, but it is his promise to sign "the first significant defense deal" between the two nations that comes as something of a surprise. "Beggars can't be choosers," said James Chin, director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania, noting that Mr Najib faces elections next year and needed to rebuild his image as a global statesman. "It looks very good for domestic purposes if a world power like China is willing to see him and give him five-star treatment, a red-carpet welcome."
But there are also geopolitical calculations and recalibrations underway around the region, some observers say.
US President Barack Obama's strategic rebalance, or "pivot", to Asia has proved a disappointment in many capitals, with the ambitious 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement in deep trouble. China, by contrast, can offer piles of cash and promises of investment without tortuous negotiations or exacting conditions.
"The pivot hasn't had the impact it ought to have had," said Michael Montesano, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. "It has failed to reduce the doubts that were already there, about US staying power and commitment to the region."
Yet the narrative of American "decline" and Asia's tilt towards China is only one side of the coin, Dr Montesano and others argue.
China may have power, money and influence, but its aggressive assertion of its South China Sea claims has alienated other nations, and pushed them towards Washington, said Yang Razali Kassim, a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Beijing lost heavily in July when an international tribunal ruled that its expansive claims to the South China Sea lacked historical basis.
In fact, few Asian nations want to be in Beijing's pocket, any more than they want to be in Washington's, and would prefer strategic balance between the two powers.
Even for Malaysia, it is too early to say if the latest move is a solid move into China's camp, said Yin Shao Loong, executive director of Malaysia's Institut Rakyat.
Malaysia's military held joint training with Chinese armed forces in 2015 but it has deeper and longer-standing links with the US and other Western nations. It has also allowed the US Navy to fly P-8A Poseidon long-range surveillance aircraft from its territory in recent years, to Beijing's discomfort. And while it has never played a vocal role in calling out China over the South China Sea in Asian regional meetings - preferring to leave that to Manila and Hanoi - it continues to call for joint regional negotiations.
Strategic balance is even more of a priority in Vietnam, which has moved significantly closer to Washington in recent years but has been careful not to antagonise Beijing.
Here, hopes had been high that the TPP trade deal would provide a boost to the economy and offer a counterweight to Chinese influence. But the deal's declining prospects of ratification by the US Congress forced a rethink, officials say.
In September, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc visited Beijing in a bid to boost trade and attract investment.
Yet Vietnam is equally determined not to give way in its dispute with China in the South China Sea - with domestic public opinion strongly nationalistic - and it has quietly moved to bolster its defences there.
It is a similarly mixed picture elsewhere.
Thailand's military-led government is buying three submarines from China, but Indonesia - furious with incursions by Chinese fishing boats into its waters this year - is now considering joint patrols with Australia in the South China Sea, officials said this week, according the Sydney Morning Herald. WP
