Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off a five-day, three-nation Southeast Asia tour on Monday
Kuala Lumpur 15 April,2025
Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off a five-day, three-nation Southeast Asia tour on Monday as Beijing seeks to tighten regional trade ties and offset the impact of huge tariffs unleashed by his US counterpart Donald Trump.
He is also visiting Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia in his first overseas trip of the year, China’s foreign ministry said.He will meet his three Southeast Asian counterparts on a tour that “bears major importance” for the broader region, ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.
Beijing is trying to present itself as a stable alternative to an erratic Trump, who announced — and then mostly reversed — sweeping tariffs this month that sent global markets into a tailspin.Trump’s tariffs “inflict serious harm on developing countries”, Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao told World Trade Organization chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in a call on Friday.
Chinese influence and power projection in S-E Asia is a serious concern for Australia which has an increasingly diminshed role and status in Asia and the Pacific! (Ed)
See this report from the China Daily below
President Xi Jinping arrived in Malaysia on Tuesday afternoon for a three-day state visit to the Southeast Asian country after he wrapped up a two-day tour of Vietnam.
Upon his arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Xi said in a written statement that he will exchange in-depth views with Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on bilateral ties and international and regional issues of common interest.
Noting that China and Malaysia are both important developing countries and members of the Global South, Xi said deepening high-level and strategic cooperation between the two countries benefits their common interests and is also conducive to regional and world peace, stability and prosperity.
This marks Xi’s second visit to Malaysia in 12 years, and the country is the second stop on his three-nation trip to Southeast Asia starting on Monday.
“I expect to use this visit as an opportunity to further deepen the two countries’ traditional friendship, enhance mutual political trust, advance cooperation on modernization, and facilitate cultural exchanges and mutual learning, thus bringing the building of a China-Malaysia community with a shared future to new heights,” Xi said.
Xi said he believes that with concerted efforts from both sides, the visit will surely achieve fruitful results and mark a new chapter featuring neighborliness, friendship and mutual benefit in the history of China-Malaysia relations and usher in a new “golden 50 years” of bilateral ties.
