Malaysia to Join BRICS

So per the article the PM said:

> “When I first met President Xi Jinping, I was attracted to him because President Xi is one of the few outstanding leaders who talks about civilisation. In a sense, he is unique,” he was quoted as saying.

But last year we had a headline like "Malaysia rejects new China map claiming entire South China Sea":

* https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/31/malaysia-rejects-ne...

Curious to see how the ocean dispute will play into this.

> Curious to see how the ocean dispute will play into this

India and China were shooting at each other over long-disputed borders a few years ago. BRICS was never a security pact. (To the extent it means anything, it’s analogous to the OECD.)

Hell, it’s easier for me in America to do business with either China or India than it is for them to do business with each other.

Former Malysia PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad wrote the following on Twitter on the Ukraine war:

https://twitter.com/chedetofficial/status/162898188067786342...

In particular the follow up (European's love of war) is hilarious and not an uncommon view in that part of the world.

>Hell, it’s easier for me in America to do business with either China or India than it is for them to do business with each other.

I don't see how you can make that claim from such a distance.

> I don't see how you can make that claim from such a distance.

The distance matters little if you're comparing reality with unbelievable claims that don't hold up to the fastest scrutiny.

> don't see how you can make that claim from such a distance

I am travelling to India on a tourist visa in November and again in December. (I have family in India.) That literally hasn’t been possible from China for two years [1].

It’s also easier to do money transfers between China and India through the U.S., because both have capital controls and both flag large transactions with the other. (I do more business in India than China, but there aren’t many hurdles.)

[1] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/india-tourist-visa-chi...

And Malaysia is Muslim because???

I guess it spread peacefully … the British on the other hand …

He's right.

India's ED has de facto been raiding Chinese businesses and forcing them to divest to Indian ownership after 2020.

For example, MG Motors India is now majority owned by JSW Group, Huawei India (once Huawei's largest R&D hub and their main chip design hub) was forced out of India after the Doklam standoff, and all the Chinese mobile manufacturers were harragued by the ED and sold their assets to Samsung, LG, Apple affiliates, etc.

Spread rubber, tea, and contracts wherever we went. I’d guess the Malaysians and Singaporeans are happy for the global leg-up caused by having English integrated into their education systems. And for the roads. And the sanitation. And the public health. And the aqueduct.

Islam in SEA spread due to proselytization and trade and its importance in SEA economies, and not by foreign conquest and forced conversion.

And the opium trade. Lots of great jobs there.

I hear it’s very morish.

Whatever I feel about Malaysia aside, it is not hard to take this position if you are watching events from the third world aka the global south aka the non aligned bloc or whatever you want to call it. The fact that most of us were colonised by Europeans at some point of time or other doesn’t help either.

Malaysia and other SE Asian countries were "colonized" by Chinese diaspora, whom control most of the wealth in their countries. Hard work is most definitely one component of their success. How about their insularity and doing business mostly amongst themselves? Try breaking into those social and business circles as a non Chinese.

Alas, we don't hear that narrative because it's only bad when Europeans do it.

Now try the same argument on Jewish merchants in 30s Europe and see how that sounds.

Nice deflection. Perhaps you'd like to address which points you feel are incorrect?

> Now try the same argument on Jewish merchants in 30s Europe and see how that sounds.

OP was clearly and unambiguously pointing out the problem with colonialism.

If you think that colonialism is bad exclusively because of racism then you aren't really thinking things through.

I mean,listen to yourself: do you think that the complains pinned on "Jewish merchants in 30s europe" was not being able to do trade with them?

I'm not exactly sure how OP expressed any problem with "colonialism", when China never colonized Malaysia and Chinese diaspora in SE Asia happened long before China started to show its own imperialistic ambition. It sounds more like good old-fashioned xenophobia to me, similar to the internment of Japanese Americans during WW2.

> Huawei India (once Huawei's largest R&D hub and their main chip design hub) was forced out of India after the Doklam standoff

Yeah, no. Huawei Bangalore was tiny in comparison to Dongguan, Beijing and Shenzhen. And far from being the main chip design hub, barely any hardware specific work happened in Bangalore.

Source: Worked for Huawei Bangalore for over 6 years.

> I'm not exactly sure how OP expressed any problem with "colonialism" (...)

To be exactly sure you only need to read OP's post.

> (...) when China never colonized (...)

Read OP's post.