Dr. Tricia Yeoh, Profesor Madya di Universiti Nottingham Malaysia, membincangkan bagaimana kunjungan Xi Jinping ke Malaysia, Kemboja, dan Vietnam mempengaruhi ekonomi dan perdagangan dua hala Malaysia di tengah ketegangan tarif dengan Amerika Syarikat.
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00:00All right, for this segment, we're going to be focusing on Donald Trump that has said that he looked at the visit of Xi Jinping to three Southeast Asian countries, a way to screw the U.S.
00:09While Malaysia keep pushing open economy agenda between two big brothers, it also puts Malaysia in a tight spot to negotiate with the stubborn U.S.
00:18And for this episode, and this time, we're going to welcome you, our guest, Dr. Trisha Yeo, Associate Professor of Practice at the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, Malaysia.
00:30I want to say thank you very much, Dr. Trisha, for joining me.
00:33Definitely, this is a very hot topic from last week, actually, with the announcement of the reciprocal tariff.
00:38Firstly, how do you assess the strategic timing of Xi Jinping's visit to Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam in the context of the recent U.S.
00:48reciprocal tariffs on the Southeast Asian countries?
00:52Thank you so much, Nina, for having me.
00:55First of all, I do think the visit by President Xi Jinping to Malaysia was actually planned before Trump's announcement of the reciprocal tariffs.
01:04However, we know that this U.S.-China trade war has been going on for a long time.
01:10It's not just from the 2nd of April.
01:12Of course, that accelerated it.
01:14So the strategic timing of President Xi's visit, of course, is timed very well because Malaysia is the chair of ASEAN.
01:23And China, given the position it's in, would like to re-establish or enhance ties with all Southeast Asian countries across ASEAN and particularly Malaysia.
01:36He has also been to visit Cambodia and Vietnam, of course, that were hit by really high tariffs, 49% and 46% respectively.
01:45Malaysia got 24%.
01:46So what you see from the visit yesterday and today will probably be a slew of different announcements.
01:55But above the announcements, essentially, is to foster closer, stronger bilateral ties.
02:01And President Xi has already talked about another golden 50-year relationship between Malaysia and China.
02:06And to what extent do you believe that we can see from the situation Xi's siam offensive will succeed in strengthening China's economic and political influence in Southeast Asia,
02:19especially given Malaysia's ASEAN chairmanship this year?
02:22It will strengthen ties, but I think we need to also be a little bit circumspect about what the reality of these strengthening of economic ties look like.
02:37I think there is a number of memorandum of understandings, MOUs, that are being signed.
02:43The MOUs themselves are more educational, you know, cultural.
02:49There are some MOUs around digital transformation, for example.
02:54What this results in, in actual concrete economic terms, remains to be seen.
03:01Of course, there's existing or pre-existing BRI or Belt and Road Initiative related projects like the ECRL that are still in the works
03:13and will still need to be, you know, fully constructed to see what the impact and economic effects will be.
03:23And at the same time, of course, not forgetting that while we develop these deeper ties with China,
03:30and that's already been happening over the last year,
03:33Malaysia still has a very important trading partner in the form of the US, right?
03:38So I think this is the whole point of the predicament that Malaysia is actually put in
03:44because it has already sent diplomats and negotiators over to Washington, D.C.
03:50to try and get a deal with Donald Trump.
03:54And that's actually what Donald Trump wants, right?
03:56To have the nations of the world coming before him and bowing at his feet, so to speak, to figure out a deal.
04:02But the point is, are we going to be able to be strategic and intelligent enough to navigate the waters
04:09between these two major superpowers of the world in a way that will benefit us and also benefit the region as a whole?
04:19So that's going to be difficult to navigate.
04:22It's definitely not an easy task for us, especially considering we're open in small economy.
04:27And talking about the Southeast Asia, how can they balance their historical preference for the US
04:34against the growing economic pressures and incentive to align more closely with China amid tariffs tensions?
04:44Well, I think the mere fact that Malaysia and Southeast Asia lie within the vicinity of China itself
04:55in terms of geography, you know, that itself tells you that where the affiliation would be naturally, historically.
05:04We also share a lot of these more cultural nuances that perhaps we have up to now
05:12not fully been able to align with the so-called Western appeal.
05:19Having said that, I think Asian values can also sometimes be a guise for countries to eschew democratic norms and values,
05:29which are also very important, right, to uphold, especially in countries like Malaysia,
05:35where we don't have like a military dictator.
05:37We still want to uphold those values.
05:39So those ties will be there.
05:40I think if you talk about the economic value of these relationships, without a doubt,
05:48we will be making decisions that are best suited for our interests.
05:54For example, being able to strengthen the supply chains within the region, strengthen supply chains
06:00between ASEAN and China, and also not forgetting other countries, right, like India,
06:06which also stands to gain as a result of this U.S.-China trade war.
06:11The last thing I'll mention right now is just that there's also a security aspect to this.
06:17We haven't said very much about what's happening in the South China Sea,
06:21and I don't think that will be discussed at this particular visit,
06:26since trade and economy are weighing high on the priority list.
06:30I'm not sure how Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim will also feel whether he's comfortable
06:36about broaching the subject of territorial sea disputes in the South China Sea,
06:41different, right, from the position that is being taken by the Philippines.
06:46However, I do think that moving forward,
06:49if China really does want to increase and enhance its relationship with Malaysia and with the region,
06:54there are certain things that we also want to put forward on the table.
06:58One of them is a security issue.
07:01The other one, of course, is how do we expect or ask for possibly greater governance standards?
07:11One big, you know, hot potato issue would be state-owned enterprises
07:16and how China is going to look at their SOEs.
07:19In the same way that, I mean, Malaysia should also be pressured into looking into our own SOEs,
07:25or what we prefer to call GLCs, the government-linked companies, in our own country.
07:31And also, the war between the Big Brothers, many have expected to continue until the end of year 2025.
07:38So I'm going to take a look at the potential long-term consequences,
07:42especially for us on economies, integration and regional supply chains.
07:45If countries start imposing trade barriers on Chinese goods as a defensive measure?
07:53Yeah, that's going to be the trick.
07:57So I think in an article I wrote recently,
08:01I said that ASEAN countries need to really resist imposing any form of retaliatory trade barriers,
08:10firstly, on each other, because suddenly you're going to see an overabundance
08:16and oversupply of cheap goods coming from China into our markets,
08:22and also perhaps possibly from other countries within the region, right?
08:28So like Vietnam as well will be looking for new markets,
08:31and of course Malaysia will be looking for new markets.
08:33And these three countries also are producing fairly similar items when it comes to electronic goods,
08:42E&E, right, semiconductors and so on.
08:46So it's really important that we actually try to do some more collective negotiation
08:53and collective discussion in concrete terms,
08:57not just on, you know, speaking in sort of very motherhood grand narrative statements.
09:06And the importance of these collective agreements would be that we commit to not necessarily harming each other's economies, right?
09:18So I know it's very difficult for countries because at the end of the day,
09:22countries are thinking about their own sovereignty,
09:24they're thinking about their own strategic interests,
09:27but this will really be a test of the ASEAN centrality
09:31and the so-called, you know, economic inclusion and integration within the region.
09:38Are we able to strengthen the entire region as a whole,
09:41as opposed to just thinking about our own strategic interests
09:45in a very, you know, Machiavellian manner?
09:48And of course, this includes China as well, right?
09:51So ASEAN plus other nations in the neighborhood,
09:57what would be in the best strategic and economic interests of us as a collective whole?
10:02But I mean, I say that, but I don't, I don't,
10:07I'm not in a position of being a negotiator,
10:10so I don't envy those who are trying to think about these economic and trade solutions.
10:17I am sure that they are very difficult.
10:20It really is a policy dilemma for anyone who's in a policymaking position at the moment.
10:25So we wish our policymakers all the best,
10:29and I'm also happy to contribute ideas if ever there's an opportunity.
10:33All right.
10:33Thank you very much for this very insightful discussion,
10:37as said by our Prime Minister Datuk Sri Anwar Ibrahim at the official dinner
10:39in honor of His Excellency Xi Jinping,
10:42President of the People's Republic of China.
10:45As he said on his last word,
10:47may the friendship between Malaysia and China endure deep as the sea,
10:50steady as the stars, and bright with the promise of tomorrow.
10:54Again, I would say thank you very much to our guest, Dr. Trisha Yeo,
10:56and definitely all of our discussion here
10:58will be featured in astroawone.com across all social media platforms.
11:02And please stay with us as we will bring more updates on the World Economic Forum
11:07on the top stories of the week after this.