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China premier Li Qiang got the red carpet treatment<\/a> when he landed in the Southeast Asian country of Malaysia on Tuesday, the last leg of a three-country regional tour.<\/p>\n During his first two stops\u2014New Zealand and Australia\u2014Li had to navigate a complex relationship <\/a>with major trading partners still beset by simmering disagreements.<\/p>\n But Li was in friendlier territory for his last stop. Malaysia\u2019s prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, has been much more open towards Beijing and China. In public statements and interviews, Anwar has criticized a rising tide of <\/a>\u201cChina-phobia,\u201d emphasized the country\u2019s non-aligned status<\/a>, called China\u2019s president Xi Jinping an \u201coutstanding\u201d leader, and even said <\/a>Malaysia wants to join the BRICS international grouping of countries ahead of Li\u2019s visit. <\/p>\n By the time Li left Malaysia on Thursday, Anwar had called<\/a> China a \u201ctrue friend\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n During Li\u2019s visit, China agreed to allow<\/a> imports of fresh Malaysian durian, a spiky pungent fruit increasingly popular with Chinese consumers. Previously Malaysia, one of the world\u2019s biggest producers of durian, could only ship frozen durian and related products to China. Malaysia exported $253 million worth of frozen durian products to China last year.<\/p>\n China and Malaysia signed over a dozen pacts<\/a> during Li\u2019s time in the Southeast Asian country, including a new five-year deal for trade and economic cooperation. <\/p>\n Li also attended a groundbreaking ceremony of a terminal of Malaysia\u2019s East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) in Gombak in the state of Selangor. The ambitious ECRL project, backed by China, aims to connect the two coasts of peninsular Malaysia. China\u2019s premier suggested that Beijing is open to connecting<\/a> the ECRL to other China-funded railway projects in Laos and Thailand, expanding China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative, the country\u2019s global infrastructure project, further into the region.<\/p>\n China has been Malaysia\u2019s largest trading partner for over a decade, meaning the Southeast Asian country needs to remain in Beijing\u2019s good books.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen your economy is not in the best shape and you need all this help, you can\u2019t be choosy,\u201d Ei Sun Oh, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Malaysia\u2019s GDP grew by 3.7%<\/a> in 2023, below the government\u2019s target of 4.0 to 5.0%. The government attributed the weaker-than-expected performance to \u201cweakness in external demand.\u201d Malaysia\u2019s currency, the ringgit, has also weakened<\/a> in recent months, making imported goods more expensive and contributing to inflation. <\/p>\n The economy is becoming a greater political concern for Anwar. 43% of Malaysians said they disapproved of the government\u2019s handling of the economy, compared to 19% a year earlier, according to a November poll<\/a> from the Merdeka Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n Anwar visited China twice last year, notes Sheana Yue, a Singapore-based economist with Oxford Economics, where the prime minister won some \u201cpretty large investment deals\u201d from Chinese businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yue points to an extension of visa-free travel arrangements between China and Malaysia as a tangible benefit from Li\u2019s trip. Before the COVID pandemic, China was the third-largest source of visitors for the Southeast Asian country. But numbers haven\u2019t recovered since China lowered its quarantine restrictions in early 2023. Just 1.5 million Chinese visitors went to Malaysia in 2023, compared to 3.1 million in 2019.<\/p>\n Geopolitics might also play a role. Malaysia\u2019s government has long pursued a non-aligned strategy, which can sometimes be misunderstood as a pro-China stance, Rahman Yaacob, a research fellow for the Southeast Asia program at the Lowy Institute, says. \u201cMalaysia is trying to attract as many investment and trade partners as possible,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Anwar\u2019s openness to joining BRICS could be a play to \u201cenhance Malaysia\u2019s global standing,\u201d Wen Chong Cheah, an Asia analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit, says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Both Cheah and Oh believe the war in Gaza might also be driving Malaysia\u2019s friendlier relationship with China. Malaysia\u2019s population largely supports Palestine, and have gone as far as to boycott Western brands like Kentucky Fried Chicken<\/a> and Starbucks<\/a> to protest U.S. support for Israel.<\/p>\n\nWhy are Malaysia and Anwar being so nice to China?<\/strong><\/h2>\n