By Prashanth Parameswaran
A recent incident is yet another worrying sign of how Beijing treats its partners.
Over the past week, Sino-Malaysian relations have been rocked by allegations that China’s envoy had attempted to interfere in the Southeast Asian state’s internal affairs.
As is often the case, the seemingly endless commentary on the single incident has descended into a he said, she said that obscures the main point of the controversy. In truth, this is just the latest in a string of worrying incidents that clearly demonstrate how China is willing to use its influence to manipulate its “special relationship” with Malaysia, even at the latter’s expense.
According to the Malaysian newspaper The Star, on September 25 China’s ambassador Huang Huikang said that Beijing opposed any form of racial discrimination and would not tolerate violent demonstrations in Malaysia. He made the comments while visiting Petaling Street, a predominantly ethnic Chinese district of Kuala Lumpur. Huang’s remarks, which were made ahead of a planned pro-government rally in response to previous mass protests urging Prime Minister Najib Razak to resign, were read as a direct interference in Malaysia’s internal affairs. ‘Chinese interference’ is a trigger word for Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country with a significant ethnic Chinese minority. It harks back to the days of the early Cold War when the Southeast Asian state worried about the Chinese Communist Party’s links to the Communist Party of Malaysia.
Predictably, Huang clarified his comments at a press conference at the Chinese embassy in Kuala Lumpur Tuesday, noting that if they were read in context, “there is no person of clear mind who will say the China ambassador is interfering in domestic affairs.” He also referenced the ‘special relationship’ between the two countries, which was forged after Malaysia became the first ASEAN state to normalize ties with China in 1974 under then-Prime Minister Tun Razak, Najib’s father. Yet this parsing of words should not distract us from the broader incident itself and what it says about how Beijing treats arguably one of its closest partners in the Asia-Pacific.
Read the full story at The Diplomat