JUNE 7 — China is in a tight spot. All its friendly policies towards the world, surprisingly, have back fired. Be it the Silk Road or the Maritime Belt, abbreviated as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), have become an albatross that hangs over its own neck.
There are three issues with which China are facing an acute problems. First of all, the US economy has expanded consecutively 117 months, although the conventional or historical average expansion is 48 months, and the Sino US trade war has only had an effect of 0.2 per cent on the GDP of US, and 0.4 per cent on the GDP.
Both sides, in other words, have not felt the pain of the trade and tariff wars they have imposed on one another. To the degree both cannot feel the pinch yet. the trade war will continue indefinitely, perhaps all the way into the presidential campaign of Donald Trump
Secondly, China is trapped in a cyber tech war with the US, with Huawei being transformed into the black sheep; even though the US itself, if the revelations of Edward Snowden, are to be believed, can retrieve anyone's personal data through the IOS backdoor of Apple too.
Article VII of the Chinese Constitution insists that all information once handled by Chinese telephony companies must hand over the details of their clients, to China. This has been cited as a reason why Huawei is a company that can abet the Chinese government.
But then again China itself is not in short of any big data. Thus the fear of Huawei appears to focus on its launch of 5 G technology, which can increase the speed of the data, audio and video transmission of Huawei and any country it collaborates with by manifolds.
Thirdly, a full movie, using 5G, can be downloaded in less than four minutes; as opposed to 45 minutes under 4G. The US and European Union, not excluding Australia and New Zeland, which do not have such capacities to roll out 5 G across the world, can be naturally intimidated by these technological advances. Huawei, not unlike Apple, can be the preferred choice of hundreds of millions of consumers.
Malaysia acknowledges the importance of China as a major power; as does the reach of any major entities in the West, even when some may be struggling. In 2018 alone, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad met with British PM Theresa May three times within the week of September 2018, of which two meetings were in London.
Malaysia has no pro-East or anti-Western policy. Malaysia respects the current international system, yet Malaysia is inclined to believe that the system has been grossly unfair, since it is based on the triumph of those major powers in 1945, during the World War II.
Regardless of the issues Malaysia may have with China over the mass detention of the Uighur Muslims, which must be resolved, China can be a friendly country. Friendly to the degree that China has always shown the willingness to negotiate with Malaysia or Asean on South China Sea.
By backing China and Huawei, Malaysia is essentially telling everyone that the trade warpath of the US, consequently, the West, is unsustainable. The Indo Pacific Strategy paper of the US Department of Defence has just been released. A major portion of it contained numerous accusations against China.
When China is cornered, it is bound to want some fair treatment. Thus when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed affirmed that Malaysia will work with Huawei, "since Malaysia has no secrets," Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed is attempting to focus on the benefits of trade, not any potential Trojan Horse phenomenon which has yet to be proven. Backing China now will soften its attitudes towards Malaysia, which is a potential game changer to getting the likes of Jho Low back to Malaysia as a witness against the corruption of the previous regime of Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
