{"id":3250,"date":"2019-03-11T17:37:48","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T17:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/?p=3250"},"modified":"2019-03-11T17:37:48","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T17:37:48","slug":"malaysias-mahathir-reportedly-says-hed-prefer-to-side-with-china-rather-than-unpredictable-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/2019\/03\/11\/malaysias-mahathir-reportedly-says-hed-prefer-to-side-with-china-rather-than-unpredictable-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia\u2019s Mahathir reportedly says he\u2019d prefer to side with China rather than \u2018unpredictable\u2019 US"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad<\/a> said he would prefer to take sides with China<\/a> over the U.S.<\/a> if his country was forced to take sides in the trade war, the South China Morning Post reported<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the 93-year-old Malaysian leader has been a strong critic<\/a> of Chinese investments in his home country, he acknowledged that China is an economic power that presents opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malaysia<\/a> has to \u201caccept that China is close to us\u201d, he told the SCMP. \u201cAnd it is a huge market. We want to benefit from China\u2019s growing wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahathir told the newspaper that the Southeast Asian<\/a> country will decide how to handle relations with China independently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, it depends on how they behave. Currently the U.S. is very unpredictable as to the things they do,\u201d Mahathir told the SCMP in an interview in Manila where he was on an official visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weighing in on fears about Beijing\u2019s growing clout, he said: \u201cChina\u2019s attitude, of course, is to gain as much influence as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut so far China doesn\u2019t seem to want to build an empire. So we will remain free people,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prime minister said that Beijing will make use of its economic strength \u201cto achieve what is to China the best objective \u2013 that they have to grow richer and richer, and this is the ambition of all countries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith their wealth they are going to be in the same position that the Western countries were in the past,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the controversies surrounding Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, Mahathir said Malaysia was \u201cwatching closely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. has said that it is worried about the security risks posed by Huawei, alleging that the company\u2019s equipment may be used by the Chinese government for espionage. Huawei has denied those claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the moment we have not found them a threat to our security. Not yet, maybe later,\u201d Mahathir told the paper. \u201cBut we cannot just follow actions taken by other countries because Chinese technology seems to be ahead of Western technology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SOURCE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said he would prefer to take sides with China over the U.S. if his country was forced to take sides in the trade war, the South China Morning Post reported on Friday. Although the 93-year-old Malaysian leader has been a strong critic of Chinese investments in his home country, he acknowledged that China is an economic power that presents opportunities. Malaysia has to \u201caccept that China is… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,153,150,16,136,33,151,152],"class_list":["post-3250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-china","tag-jinping","tag-mahathir","tag-malaysia","tag-trump","tag-us","tag-xi","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3251,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250\/revisions\/3251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}