Exclusive | Malaysia won’t back down on sensitive issues even as it bolsters economic ties with China, Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah says
- On the South China Sea dispute, Saifuddin said Malaysia’s view was it should be resolved by talks between Beijing and the 10-member Asean bloc
- Saifuddin said the Mahathir administration was also following ‘the Uygur story very closely’
In an interview with the Post, Saifuddin said cumbersome bilateral issues remained under discussion even as both sides worked to resolve “low-hanging fruit” – such as the recent resumptions of stalled Beijing-backed mega projects.
“Every time we meet our counterparts from China, all of these issues are on the table, but of course, you have to be practical,” Saifuddin said on Sunday in the Malaysian administrative capital Putrajaya. “There is this thing called the low-hanging fruit, and whichever one that you can handle first, I think you try to settle it.”
On the South China Sea – claimed by China in almost its entirety, with overlapping claims from Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, Taipei and Vietnam – Saifuddin said his government was considering a request from Beijing for a “bilateral kind of discussion”.
The foreign minister said ongoing talks on a code of conduct in the South China Sea were going well, “but there are things here and there that China seems to be doing that are seen by others, especially people in this region, as quite intimidating”.
“I hope they can more or less de-escalate their way of doing things,” he said.