As Trump makes rare visit to Malaysia, PM Anwar’s balancing act faces test

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – When US President Donald Trump lands successful Malaysia for Southeast Asia’s header acme this weekend, helium volition beryllium delivering Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim a diplomatic coup.

US presidents seldom sojourn Malaysia, a multiracial federation of 35 cardinal radical sandwiched betwixt Thailand and Singapore, which for decades has maintained a argumentation of not picking sides successful rivalries betwixt large powers.

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Trump is conscionable the 3rd US person to question to the Southeast Asian country, which is hosting a Sunday-to-Tuesday acme for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), pursuing visits by erstwhile US Presidents Barack Obama and Lyndon B Johnson.

After skipping ASEAN summits successful 2018, 2019 and 2020, Trump, whose disdain for multilateralism is renowned, volition beryllium attending the gathering of Southeast Asian nations for conscionable the 2nd time.

The US president volition beryllium joined by a big of high-profile leaders from non-ASEAN countries, including Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Opting not to be are Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who Trump is expected to conscionable successful South Korea astatine adjacent week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Trump’s visit, successful galore ways, is emblematic of the delicate balancing enactment that Anwar’s authorities has sought to support arsenic Malaysia navigates the headwinds of the heated rivalry betwixt the US and China.

Malaysia is profoundly entwined with some the US and Chinese economies.

The US, which has a ample footprint successful Malaysia’s tech and lipid and state industries, was the Southeast Asian country’s apical overseas capitalist and third-biggest trading spouse successful 2024.

China, a large purchaser of Malaysian electronics and thenar oil, the aforesaid twelvemonth took the apical spot successful commercialized and was 3rd for investment.

But Malaysia’s efforts to locomotion a good enactment betwixt Washington and Beijing person go progressively fraught arsenic the superpowers rotation retired tit-for-tat tariffs and export controls portion butting heads implicit determination flashpoints specified arsenic Taiwan and the South China Sea.

“Optimally, Malaysia wants to productively prosecute some China and the US connected a assortment of issues,” said Thomas Daniel, an expert astatine the Institute of Strategic & International Studies successful Kuala Lumpur.

“It is successful our interest,” Daniel told Al Jazeera.

Anwar has formed Trump’s sojourn arsenic a accidental to bolster economical ties, champion determination bid and stability, and elevate ASEAN’s lasting connected the planetary stage.

Anwar has besides pledged to usage the rare opportunity for look time with Trump to constructively rise points of quality between Washington and Kuala Lumpur, peculiarly the Palestinian cause.

“The through-line is autonomy: debar entanglement, maximise options, and extract benefits from some poles without becoming anyone’s proxy,” Awang Azman Awang Pawi, a prof astatine the University of Malaya, told Al Jazeera.

During Trump’s visit, US tariffs connected Malaysia, presently acceptable astatine 19 percent, and China’s mooted export controls connected uncommon earths are expected to beryllium precocious connected the agenda.

For Malaysia, the precedence is preserving “rules-based” commercialized that allows for countries to deepen economical ties contempt their governmental differences, said Mohd Ramlan Mohd Arshad, a elder lecturer astatine the MARA University of Technology successful Shah Alam, adjacent Kuala Lumpur.

A prolonged economical acold warfare betwixt the US and China is the “worst thing” that could hap to Malaysia, Arshad told Al Jazeera.

Trump, who has made nary concealed of his ambitions for the Nobel Peace Prize, is besides expected to witnesser the signing of a bid accord betwixt Thailand and Cambodia, which engaged successful a little borderline struggle successful July that near astatine slightest 38 radical dead.

For Anwar, who has led a multiracial conjugation of parties with divers and competing interests since 2022, the balancing enactment besides involves governmental considerations astatine home.

US enactment for Israel’s warfare successful Gaza has been a bony of contention successful Muslim-majority Malaysia, wherever the plight of Palestinians has inspired predominant nationalist protests.

In the run-up to the summit, critics person demanded that Anwar rescind Trump’s invitation implicit his relation successful supporting the war, which a United Nations committee of enquiry past period determined to represent genocide.

“A idiosyncratic similar Trump, nary substance however powerful, should not beryllium welcomed successful Malaysia,” erstwhile Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Anwar’s erstwhile mentor-turned-nemesis, said successful a video connection past month.

Defending the invitation, Anwar has stressed his presumption of diplomacy arsenic “practical work” for advancing his country’s interests “in an imperfect world”.

“It demands balance, discipline, and the courageousness to enactment the people adjacent erstwhile the crushed shifts beneath us,” helium told a league successful Kuala Lumpur earlier this month.

As a tiny power, Malaysia has ever enactment pragmatism astatine the centre of its overseas policy, said Sharifah Munirah Alatas, an planetary relations lecturer astatine the National University of Malaysia.

“Anwar and Malaysia cannot spend to bash otherwise,” Alatas told Al Jazeera.

“And fixed the existent highly unpredictable Sino-American hostility induced by the Trump 2.0 era, ASEAN volition stay actively non-aligned, without taking sides.”

Awang Azman, the University of Malaya professor, said that portion Trump’s sojourn volition elevate Malaysia and ASEAN’s illustration by itself, the existent trial of the summit’s occurrence volition beryllium tangible outcomes connected issues specified arsenic the Thailand-Cambodia struggle and trade.

“It’s not conscionable a photograph op if a ceasefire accord and factual commercialized connection onshore connected paper,” Awang Azman said.

“If either way stalls, the sojourn is inactive symbolically important – fixed the rarity of US statesmanlike trips to Malaysia – but the communicative volition revert to optics implicit outcomes.”

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