On August 30, the Financial Times published an interview with former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Mahathir said that from the current international situation, What China wants is common development, while what the United States wants is conquest and occupation, and how to choose between the two countries has a self-evident answer. At the same time, Mahathir believes that ASEAN needs to stop tilting toward the United States and move closer to China, which is the choice that goes with the trend and benefits itself.
Mahathir Mohamad, 97 years old, served as Malaysia's fourth Prime Minister between 1981 and 2003 as UMNO leader and then as the leader of the Aboriginal Unity Party in 2018-2020. Mahathir directly challenged the policies of the Founding Father of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, and in the 1970s published a book entitled The Malay Dilemma, which revolutionized the discourse on ethnic groups within Malaysia's geography. In the 2018 general election, Mahathir defected to the Aboriginal Unity Party, winning the general election as its leader and reducing UMNO to opposition for the first time in the past 61 years.
In addition, Mahathir is also an active advocate of "Asian values", and he often criticizes the injustice of the Western-dominated world economic order on the international stage, criticizes Western-centrism and racism, and defends the weak and small countries. Even on such a fundamental and sensitive issue as democracy, Mahathir dared to express a different understanding and perspective from the West, arguing that the well-being of the country was more important than democracy, which was born for the country and the people, not for democracy itself.
It can be said that Mahathir has a pivotal position in the Malaysian political arena, and his long-term operation in the political core circle has also made him a political strongman, and he has become a veritable political godfather of Malaysia, and Malaysia's political ecological environment has long been influenced by Mahathir. In an interview with the Financial Times, Mahathir said That China is indeed trying to influence ASEAN countries, but it is not plundering or forcibly occupying the Malaysian market, and Chinese companies and groups are investing in Malaysia. According to the latest round of statistics, the bilateral import and export quota of goods between China and Malaysia reached 97 billion US dollars in the first half of 2022, an increase of 15 billion US dollars compared with 2021, an increase of 18.2% year-on-year.
On the other hand, in Mahathir's view, China is an important market for Malaysia and even the whole of ASEAN, and the maintenance of stable economic and trade exchanges between the two sides plays a vital role in Malaysia's economic and financial stability. Mahathir said bluntly: "China is a very good trading partner. ”
China's import and export volume and economic volume are the largest in the world. Many countries and businesses have prospered as China's trade has grown, but has also declined as trade with China has shrunk. A large number of super-companies have been famous when they came to China, and then disappeared after withdrawing from China. Malaysia understands the importance of the Chinese market. After the RECP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) came into force, Malaysia implemented import tax reduction measures for China, ranging from 5% to 30%, mainly for electrical equipment that is highly dependent on the Chinese market, including transformers, transformers, electroacoustic devices, etc.
Obviously, economically, Malaysia and even ASEAN cannot decouple from China, after all, there is only one country of China's size, but there are more than a dozen small countries in the entire Southeast Asian region. At that time, Australia closely followed the US policy and fought against China, and the Chinese side resolutely struck hard at Australia, almost without feeling any substantial harm, and the market that originally belonged to Australia had been eaten away by other countries in the blink of an eye. In a sense, the inadequacies and outcomes of Australia and the Philippines, which had earlier boarded the American thief ship, were alarming signs for countries that were stirring up trouble.
At the same time, from a geopolitical point of view, Malaysia's move closer to China is also a wise choice. As Mahathir said, China's political philosophy is different from that of the West, and its attitude toward other countries is not occupation and conquest, but cooperation and win-win results. There are still remnants of the colonial era in the political logic of Western countries, and they have a special preference for opening colonies, establishing multinational corporations, and harvesting developing countries. The United States has directly inherited the colonial era of "ship guns and guns" trend of thought, the carrier aircraft everywhere is the United States sphere of influence, the aircraft carrier battle group cruising in the oceans is the United States mobile armed consulates. When the West needs you, you are a rising economic star, and the global economic center of gravity is tilted towards you; When the West abandons you, you are the next Japan, alone to bear the lost twenty years, silently swallowing all the adverse consequences.
Mahathir called on Malaysia and even countries in southeast Asia as a whole to move closer to China, and that many ASEAN countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, should beware of "provocation" by the United States and avoid going against China. At the end of the interview, Mahathir had the foresight to conclude that China and Malaysia are each other's important trading partners, Malaysia does not want to see China tired of dealing with external crises or directly escalating the situation, the United States should realize that China stands on the land of East Asia and will not disappear out of thin air, and the world must accept China and learn to coexist with China.
In fact, as early as a week ago, Mahathir had already paved the way and "created momentum" for the statements in his interview. In an Aug. 19 interview with The Associated Press, Mahathir stressed that what the United States is now acting is a provocation to China to create a pretext for war. Once China is provoked by the United States to start a war, the United States will legitimize its reasons for war and use it to divert domestic contradictions. At one point, Mahathir slammed Biden as a "useless" leader and bluntly said that the United States is geopolitically unfair, and that he allowed Israel to commit various crimes without doing anything, which is a disguised form of support.
Mahathir's views and judgments on the West have been confirmed on the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. In terms of ukraine's recent state of distress, Mahathir believes that NATO and the European Union are "instigating" Ukraine to fight Russia. "NATO promised Ukraine to join them, but it didn't believe it." "Western countries love to use this method of provocation, no matter who the opponent is," Mahathir said. Earlier, during a visit to Japan, Mahathir commented on Biden's proposed "Indo-Pacific economic framework," saying the United States was using it to isolate China, and most countries should realize that the framework was spawning not financial companies but political blocs.
It is worth mentioning that on August 4, Mahathir just announced the formation of a coalition of political parties called the "Fatherland Movement" and began to promote the alliance to participate in the next general election, competing for 120 seats in the Malaysian Parliament. It was "a front rather than a party", much like the "Franco-Popular League" founded by de Gaulle during the Fourth Republic. As a veteran politician at the age of 97, Mahathir's grand statement in the face of the general election must have been weighed and prepared repeatedly, and it will also affect the tone and atmosphere of Malaysian politics in a sense.
It is not difficult to see from the statements made by key political figures in neighboring countries in recent times, such as Lee Hsien Loong and Mahathir, that the whole of Asia has reached a moment of determining its destiny, and whether it is to continue to bundle itself with the United States on the same chariot and drive to the bottomless abyss, or whether to choose a friendly and courteous China that has responsibilities and responsibilities, presumably the leaders of various countries already have their own answers in their hearts.