PUTRAJAYA – Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim triumphantly returned from his maiden visit to Beijing last week, where he bagged as much as $39 billion in new investment pledges from the Asian superpower.
With those deals in hand, Anwar effusively described his counterpart Xi Jinping as a “visionary” who had “not only changed the course of China but also given a ray of hope to the world and mankind, with the visions that extend beyond China into the region and the world.”
Upon returning home, however, the Malaysian leader has been met by a political opposition galvanizing around the notion he is selling out the national interest to China, particularly in the contested South China Sea.
Although Anwar has signaled an uncompromising position on his country’s territorial claims in the contested waters, he provoked outrage in certain political opposition quarters after suggesting the possibility of joint energy exploration in contested waters “If China feels this is their right, Malaysia is open to negotiations.”
In response, opposition leader and former prime minster Muhyiddin Yassin accused his successor of potentially “threaten[ing] the nation’s sovereignty,” since Anwar was ostensibly referring to areas “within Malaysia’s territory [that] cannot be negotiated over or demanded by China.”
Muhyiddin, chairman of the opposition Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition, called on the incumbent to be “more stern” in defending Malaysia’s sovereign rights and territorial claims in the contested South China Sea.
Anwar’s camp responded in kind by accusing the former prime minister of grandstanding and misconstruing the incumbent’s statements on the issue.
An Anwar ally and outspoken member of parliament allegedly implied that the opposition leader was either “bodoh” (unintelligent) or pretending to be “bodoh” on a complex geopolitical issue. Anwar himself challenged the opposition on the issue, claiming his statements were taken out of context.
The heated back-and-forth over the South China Sea disputes reflects a remarkable shift in Malaysia’s domestic politics amid China’s expanding footprint in adjacent waters.
Unlike any time in recent memory, the maritime disputes have become a central theme of otherwise fruitful bilateral relations.
Malaysia was among the first regional states to normalize ties with Maoist China and has historically adopted “quiet diplomacy” vis-a-vis their bilateral maritime disputes.
At times, the Southeast Asian nation has even seemingly acted like China’s proxy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by openly criticizing Western military alliances in the region.
When the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) submarine deal was first announced, Malaysia not only criticized the new pact as “destabilizing” but also emphasized the “need to get the views of the [Chinese] leadership, particularly China’s defense [officials], on what they think of AUKUS and what their action could be.”
Money has no doubt influenced Malaysia’s view. China is Malaysia’s top trading and investment partner.
Last year, bilateral trade hit a historic high of $203 billion, with China consistently serving as the Southeast Asian nation’s leading trading partner for the past 14 years.
Malaysia’s strategic partnership with China culminated under the Najib Razak administration, which increasingly relied on the Asian superpower’s largesse and strategic patronage in his tumultuous, twilight years in office.
Under Najib’s watch, Malaysia was at the forefront of China’s emerging Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Southeast Asia.
Bilateral relations experienced a temporary reset following Mahathir Mohamad’s return to power in 2018, but the fiery nonagenarian leader gradually walked back his earlier complaints over a supposed “Chinese debt trap” after he secured concessions from Beijing on several big-ticket, BRI-related infrastructure projects.
Anwar, a nemesis of Najib and previously also Mahathir, has boasted of big, new Chinese investment schemes in Malaysia, including an $18 billion project by China’s Rongsheng Petrochemical in a refining facility in the southern state of Johor.
“The total investment secured from China is 170.07 billion ringgit ($38 billion), the highest investment achieved by Malaysia so far,” Anwar said last week during his parliamentary address following his return from a four-day trip to China.
“[Chinese] Premier Li Qiang and I decided against entertaining nine other proposals as they did not include specific planning or a time frame for launching by this year or at least year’s end. Those we have decided upon are being monitored by [our] governments,” he added, underscoring his administration’s stated emphasis on “quality” investments.
But while bilateral economic relations have remained robust, long gone are the days of strategic acquiescence over the South China Sea.
In late 2019, Malaysia filed a new extended continental shelf claim to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) to directly challenge Beijing’s claims over southwestern portions of the South China Sea.
Shortly after, then-Malaysian foreign minister Saifuddin Abdullah dismissed Beijing’s expansive claims in the area as “ridiculous” and with “no legal basis”, and even went so far as to threaten international arbitration over the disputes, similar to the complaint filed at The Hague by neighboring Philippines.
Months later, Malaysia upped the ante by triggering a three-way naval standoff with both China and Vietnam by conducting unilateral energy exploration activities, led by the state-owned Petronas company in the country’s northwestern waters, particularly in blocks ND1 and ND2, which also fall within the Malaysia-Vietnam Joint Development Area (JDA).
Meanwhile, Malaysia also began to push back against a Chinese coast guard presence off the coast of Sarawak and across the disputed Spratlys Islands, where Putrajaya controls several land features.
The following year, Malaysia, then under newly-elected prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, submitted a four-paragraph note verbale to the Chinese ambassador to express its “protest against the presence and activities of Chinese vessels, including a survey vessel, in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone off the coasts of Sabah and Sarawak.”
The Southeast Asian nation openly accused Beijing of violating
“Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone Act 1984, as well as the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).”
Ismail made it clear that Putrajaya would make no “compromise on sovereignty” matters in the disputed waters. Earlier that year, Malaysia also publicly accused Chinese warplanes of violating “Malaysian air space and sovereignty” and warned “having friendly diplomatic relations with any countries does not mean that we will compromise our national security.”
Amid rising tensions in the South China Sea, Malaysian defense forces sent an unmistakable message to Beijing by stepping up military cooperation with Washington. In 2021, Malaysia joined the United States-led Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT) exercise with the aim of strengthening interoperability and “uphold[ing] international laws and norms.”
The same year also saw Malaysia’s air force conduct massive joint drills with the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group during a high-profile exercise in the South China Sea.
With successive Malaysian prime ministers taking a tougher stance on the South China Sea, Anwar’s openness to joint energy exploration in the country’s claimed waters has understandably triggered a firestorm.
“This statement is reckless and should never be issued by a prime minister. The indirect implications of this statement have indirectly acknowledged the Chinese claim to territories that are already Malaysian territory that must be defended,” former prime minister Muhyiddin said on Facebook last week.
“In fact, the Petronas area referred to by the prime minister is in Malaysian territory and cannot be negotiated even though claimed by the Chinese country,” he added, referring to the Malaysian energy giant’s unilateral exploration activities in southwestern portions of the South China Sea, which are also claimed by China and Vietnam.
Amid growing nationalistic fervor over the issue, the opposition leader lashed out at Anwar for supposedly appearing “very weak, very irresponsible and appear to be pledging the dignity and sovereignty of the country to foreign powers.”
To make matters more complicated, Malaysia has been at loggerheads with China over the presence of the China Coast Guard ship CCG 5901 at Putrajaya-controlled Luconia Shoals since mid-February, according to The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington
Eager to defend his nationalist credentials, Anwar has shot back at his critics and reiterated an uncompromising stance on the maritime disputes: “I said we will continue with our petroleum exploration project (in the South China Sea), full stop. I did not say we will give-and-take (with China).”
Earlier, Anwar also clarified during his address to the parliament that his government “will continue to monitor and if there is a collision, we will file a protest” in response to China’s presence in Malaysian-claimed waters.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on Twitter at @Richeydarian