Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim will be given a diplomatic coup when US President Donald Trump travels to Malaysia for Southeast Asia’s headline summit this weekend.
Malaysia, a 35 million-person multiracial state sandwiched between Thailand and Singapore, has a policy of not taking sides in conflicts between great powers for decades. US presidents are only occasionally there.
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Following visits by former US Presidents Barack Obama and Lyndon B. Johnson, Trump is only the third US leader to travel to the Southeast Asian nation. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is holding a Sunday-to-Tuesday summit there.
Trump, whose disdain for multilateralism is well known, will be present for the Southeast Asian nations for the second time after skipping the ASEAN summits in 2018 and 2019.
A number of prominent non-ASEAN nations’ leaders, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, will attend the US president’s meeting.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping, who Trump is scheduled to meet with in South Korea at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit next week, have chosen not to attend.
Trump’s visit is, in many ways, a representation of the delicate balance Malaysia’s government has attempted to maintain as it navigates the strain of the contentious conflict between the US and China.
Malaysia’s economies are deeply linked to both the US and China’s economies.
In 2024, the US was the Southeast Asian nation’s top foreign investor and third-largest trading partner due to its large presence in Malaysia’s tech and oil industries.
The same year, China, a major buyer of palm oil and electronics from Malaysia, took the top spot in both trade and investment.
Malaysia’s attempts to walk a fine line between Beijing and Washington have become increasingly problematic as regional hotspots like Taiwan and the South China Sea are being squabbling with each other.
According to Thomas Daniel, an analyst at the Institute of Strategic &, International Studies in Kuala Lumpur, “Malaysia wants to productively engage both China and the US on a variety of issues.”
Daniel told Al Jazeera, “It is in our interests.”
Anwar sees Trump’s visit as a chance to boost regional peace and stability, strengthen economic ties, and strengthen ASEAN’s standing on the global stage.
Anwar and Trump have both pledged to constructively raise issues of disagreement between Washington and Kuala Lumpur, particularly the Palestinian cause, using the rare occasion for face time .
Awang Azman Awang Pawi, a professor at the University of Malaya, stated on Al Jazeera that the key to autonomy is to avoid entanglement, maximize options, and benefit from both poles without acting as anyone’s proxy.
Trump’s visit is expected to feature high-level items on the agenda, including China’s proposed export controls on rare earths, and US tariffs on Malaysia, which are currently set at 19 percent.
According to Mohd Ramlan Mohd Arshad, a senior lecturer at the MARA University of Technology in Shah Alam, close to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia prioritizes preserving “rules-based” trade, which promotes economic growth despite political differences.
The “worst” thing that could happen to Malaysia is a protracted US-China economic cold war, according to Arshad, according to Arshad.
Trump, who hasn’t made a secret of his plans to win the Nobel Peace Prize, is also expected to sign a peace agreement with Thailand and Cambodia, which engaged in a brief border conflict in July that resulted in at least 38 fatalities.
The balancing act also involves political considerations at home for Anwar, who has led a multiracial coalition of parties with divergent and competing interests since 2022.
In Malaysia with a Muslim majority, where the plight of Palestinians has frequently sparked public protests, the US has long been at odds with its support of Israel’s occupation of Gaza.
In the weeks leading up to the summit, critics have demanded that Anwar decline Trump’s invitation because of his support for the war, which a UN commission of inquiry last month declared to be genocide.
In a video message sent last month, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, Anwar’s former mentor-turned-nemesis, said that “a person like Trump, no matter how powerful, should not be welcomed in Malaysia.”
Anwar has defended the invitation and emphasized that diplomacy is “practical work” for “advancing his country’s interests in an imperfect world.”
He stated at a conference earlier this month in Kuala Lumpur that “it demands balance, discipline, and the courage to stay the course even when the ground shifts beneath us.”
According to Sharifah Munirah Alatas, an independent scholar and researcher who previously taught international relations at the National University of Malaysia, Malaysia has always put pragmatism at the center of its foreign policy.
Alatas told Al Jazeera, “Anwar and Malaysia cannot afford to do otherwise.”
And ASEAN will continue to be actively non-aligned, without taking sides, given the current, wildly unpredictable, Sino-American tension created by Trump 2.0.
The real test of the summit’s success will be tangible outcomes on issues like the Thailand-Cambodia conflict and trade, according to Awang Azman, a professor at the University of Malaya.
Awang Azman remarked, “It’s not just a photo op if a ceasefire agreement and concrete trade language appear on paper.”
Source: Aljazeera
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