“When China was poor, we were frightened of China. When China is rich, we are also frightened of China,” he said. “I think we have to find some way to deal with China.”

But even though Malaysia learned to navigate the relationship, Mahathir offered a perspective from history: “We always say, we have had China as a neighbour for 2,000 years, we were never conquered by them. But the Europeans came in 1509, in two years, they conquered Malaysia.”

And, while Western suspicions of Beijing have deepened over issues from cyber espionage to interference in domestic politics, Mahathir said his 10-month-old government would make its own, independent decisions on how to deal with its largest trading partner rather than take cues from abroad.

This was a purely economic consideration, Mahathir said.

“So at this moment, economically, we would prefer China. Politically, of course, we are not attracted towards a system of government that is very authoritarian.”

‘Chinese by nature are very good businesspeople’: Mahathir’s interview in full

His nuanced comments to the Post on China will further entrench the view of many analysts that he has softened his publicly hawkish views about Asia’s biggest economy since beginning his second stint as prime minister – he also held the post from 1981 to 2003.

Before the election last May, in which he toppled one-time protégé Najib Razak, Mahathir’s views on China had at times verged on being unvarnished – at one point even provoking sharp rejoinders from the Chinese embassy in his country.

In the interview, Mahathir’s first with foreign media this year, the prime minister offered his views on a range of concerns raised by the international community – and particularly the West – about Beijing in recent months.

The US and Australia are among the Western countries that have restricted Huawei’s involvement in developing such networks, citing concerns that the company would insert “back doors” in the technology that would be accessible to the Chinese state.

Mahathir: green light for China-backed East Coast Rail Link – if price is right

Huawei on Thursday said it was suing the US government, claiming that Washington’s ban on government agencies, employees and contractors from using its products was “unconstitutional”.

Mahathir said: “At the moment we have not found them a threat to our security. Not yet, maybe later.”

“But we cannot just follow actions taken by other countries because Chinese technology seems to be ahead of Western technology,” he said.

Mahathir also addressed the debt-trap accusation. Western countries point to the example of Sri Lanka, which ceded control of its Hambantota port to China on a 99-year lease after falling behind on its debt obligations, as highlighting their concerns.

But Mahathir said sovereign governments were free to decide whether to take on foreign loans.

“The Chinese by nature are very good businesspeople,” Mahathir said. “They see opportunities and with their capital they want to penetrate areas where before they had no representation or little representation.”

But “the countries concerned must be able to distinguish what is allowable or needed by their country and what is not. If countries prefer to borrow huge sums of money, well, that is [their] decision.”

“You make that decision, you know capital flowing into the country exerts some influence over the country. So it is up to the countries concerned to make sure that the money flowing into their country is not borrowed money, is not money for infrastructure, but maybe limited to money for investment in productive processes.”

Still, pressed on whether he bought the “debt threat” theory, the prime minister said: “Well, yes maybe it is that way because that is one way of buying influence.”

He offered the caveat that while China had a strong influence “on our economy and maybe even our politics”, the Asian power had not moved to colonise like Europeans of yesteryear who “came to the East and very simply conquered the East”.

“It is all up to us,” Mahathir said.

‘We just can’t pay’: Mahathir soothes China’s ego over rail link

Since coming to power, Mahathir’s government has been swift to pare down what it sees as overpriced and unnecessary China-backed infrastructure projects that Malaysia signed up to under the scandal-tainted former prime minister Najib Razak.

While no official date for the summit featuring world leaders involved in the trillion-dollar initiative has been set, diplomatic sources told the Post it would be from April 25 to 27.

Mahathir’s visit will be his second to China since his shock election victory over Najib last May.

“I am going there because I want to listen to what they are saying about the belt and road and at the same time given a chance I would like to explain Malaysia’s attitude towards this policy of China,” Mahathir said.

He added: “Whatever may be our attitude towards China, we have to admit that China is a big power. It is a regional power and we need to deal with them. We need to understand their policies and strategies and we have to make adjustments so that we can gain some benefit from China’s policies.”

Asked about the mounting unease towards Beijing cited repeatedly by the US and its allies, Mahathir quipped that the Western nations during their stints as former colonial rulers did not “talk about domination or about how they used military might against small countries even to the point of conquering them”.

“Now we see China having economic strength, and it is going to make use of economic strength to achieve what is to China the best objective – that they have to grow richer and richer, and this is the ambition of all countries.

“With their wealth they are going to be in the same position that the Western countries were in the past.”

134 billion reasons for Mahathir not to rethink Chinese investment

But, again drawing from history, he offered this assessment: “China’s attitude, of course, is to gain as much influence as possible. But so far China doesn’t seem to want to build an empire. So we will remain free people.”

“Southeast Asian countries must have a common stand. We, as far as possible, [should not] deal with China as one single country and only think about what we [can] gain when the other countries are losing,” he said.