KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 — Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today Malaysia will not pick sides in the ongoing US-China trade war.
If pressured by either side, Dr Mahathir said he would advise both superpowers to come to a compromise as war is not beneficial to anybody.
“We will not take sides, we will tell them please don’t go to war it’s wasteful,” said Dr Mahathir during an interview at the 5th Asean Business Summit in Bangkok, Thailand today.
“They know it is damaging to both the US and China. I think if (Donald) Trump loses the next election we might have our solution,” he added as the crowd burst into laughter.
The US has said it may impose duties on USD$300billion (RM1.25 trillion) worth of Chinese products if the two sides can’t reach a trade deal.
This fall out is expected to tilt the playing field in favour of other global competitors and Malaysia are one of those expected to benefit from it as traders and investors look elsewhere for business.
Dr Mahathir said the overarching goal must be to find ways of working with the rising power rather than to let fears about the current trade war cloud the government’s judgment.
In particular, he said Malaysia would not be swayed by Western tactics or influences accusing Chinese telecom firm Huawei to be involved in spying.
“Regarding the Huawei thing we have no secrets to hide from anybody so if they want to look into our secrets their welcome.
“We don’t have some fantastic scientific discoveries or something like that.
“Malaysia are friendly with all the countries in this world. We criticise when necessary and we support when necessary also,” said Dr Mahathir.
As the US-China feud intensifies, the PM was asked if he felt China will soon be the new powerhouses in the world, swapping places with the US.
“Not quite. I don’t know if China has the ambition to be the No 1 in the world but China is growing in it’s reach.
“Before this we only hear of Washington coming up with all sorts of ideas and we are told to accept them. But China is more democratic.”
Dr Mahathir said when China had a plan they wanted to introduce to the world they would invite all nations to participate in dialogue regardless of that nation’s population or economic benefits.
“China has 1.4 billion people but when they introduced the “One Belt One Road” project they invited everybody to go to Beijing and talk about it. They defined what it was and even a country with 300,000 people could sit with China with 1.4 billion people.
“I don’t like the whole idea of cooking something up in the West and then asking us to accept it. China is a little bit more sensitive to our feelings,” added the 93-year-old.
