Chinese leaders met with visiting Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim showing the importance China attaches to developing ties with the Southeast Asian nation, and building a China-Malaysia community with a shared future.
Anwar’s visit comes less than two months after Malaysian King Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar visited China in September, his first visit to a non-ASEAN country since becoming head of state.
In June, Premier Li Qiang paid an official visit to Malaysia, during which the two sides issued a joint statement on deepening and upgrading the comprehensive strategic partnership and jointly building a China-Malaysia community with a shared future.
China-Malaysia ties go back a long way. Malaysia was one of the first ASEAN countries to establish diplomatic ties and the first to establish a comprehensive strategic partnership with China. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1974, especially since the establishment of the comprehensive strategic partnership in 2013, relations between China and Malaysia have improved by leaps and bounds. China has been Malaysia’s largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, with bilateral trade from January to June reaching $100.23 billion, up 10.6 percent year-on-year, and Malaysia remains China’s second-largest trading partner and largest source of imports in ASEAN.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the Year of China-Malaysia Friendship, which will inject new impetus into the development of bilateral ties. At the same time, Malaysia’s rotating presidency of ASEAN next year is expected to further strengthen bilateral coordination and cooperation within the China-ASEAN framework, and help boost China’s ties with the bloc to promote regional economic integration and safeguard peace and development in Asia.
The two countries should steadily advance flagship projects such as the East Coast Rail Link and the Malaysia-China “Two Countries, Twin Parks”, unleash the cooperation potential in emerging areas, and constantly expand the space for cooperation in order to expedite their modernization process with high-level strategic coordination.