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| Image: Flickr User - Friends of Europe |
By Shannon Tiezzi
While visiting Malaysia, China’s premier offered loans and rhetoric designed to boost the Maritime Silk Road.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang paid his first official visit to Malaysia this weekend. While in town for the various ASEAN-related summits in Kuala Lumpur, Li expanded his trip to include bilateral meetings and a tour of the port of Malacca.
Overall, trade and economic relations were the major focus of Li’s visit, although there were some strategic and military components (my colleague Prashanth Parameswaran will have more on the agreement to allow China to use Malaysia’s port of Kota Kinabalu). Following up on similar themes during President Xi Jinping’s trips to Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines, Li used his time in Malaysia to emphasize the benefits China’s rise will have for the region – and downplay concerns about China’s “assertiveness.” As I wrote earlier, China is trying to use economic incentives to smooth over worries in Kuala Lumpur that the “special relationship” between China and Malaysia has hit a snag.
In keeping with his emphasis on trade, Li made a symbolic visit to Malacca, a side trip Chinese media described as “an explicit gesture of China’s commitment to peaceful development and common prosperity in East Asia.” Malacca has served as an important international port for centuries – including playing host to the fleet of Chinese explorer Zheng He in the 15th century. Li visited the Zheng He Museum in Malacca, which is dedicated to the explorer China hails as the originator of the Maritime Silk Road.
Read the full story at The Diplomat