Malaysia Can Develop Muslim Market in China

International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa said that Malaysia's halal [not forbidden]Muslim products were well positioned in the huge Muslim market in China. He said Muslim products produced by Malaysia were widely accepted and welcomed by the Muslims in China. He added that if Malaysia and China could enhance bi-lateral cooperation in the various Halal product fields, Malaysia's Halal products should stand a good change to open up the huge and massive Muslim product market in China.

Datuk Seri Mustapa said this in conjunction with the 20th Anniversary of the Malaysian-China Chamber of Commerce (MCCC) when he accepted a video interview with the MCCC Economic Bureau Director Kong Ling Loong.

Business and Investment Opportunities
In this interview, the International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa said the Malaysian Government was prepared to host a number of business and investment forum to promote bilateral business and investment opportunities between Chinese and Malaysian businesses to boost business interaction. He also hoped Malaysian private sector could play an active role to attract more Chinese businesses to invest in Malaysia.

'Malaysia looks forward to more Chinese buyers to participate in the 2010 International Trade Exhibition (INTRADE 2010) held in Kuala Lumpur from 9 to 11 November this year.'

Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa said: 'Malaysia and China must build a more far-reaching relationship and cooperation in various fields, including agriculture, infrastructure development, transportation and logistics management, tourism and investment, as well as the rapid development in biotechnology and environmental services in recent years.'

Bilateral Economic and Trade Relations With China
When asked about how Malaysia and China could strengthen trade and economic ties, Minister Mustapa said that as early as in 1974, Malaysia and China had already established diplomatic relations. He said that following Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib's visit to China in June 2009 and the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to Malaysia on11 November during the same year, the bilateral relationship between the two countries have already reached a new height.
'In 1988, Malaysia has also signed trade agreement with China to strengthen bilateral economic and trade relations.'

'Under this trade agreement, in 1988 Malaysia and China formed the Joint Economic and Commercial Council (JETC). Since then, JETC has served as the platform for both governments and commercial organizations from both countries to carry out interaction and. It has also become a platform to resolve trade and investment problems and issues. The JETC has held eight meetings since then.
Minister Mustapa said he hoped Malaysia could hold more similar meetings with China.

Malaysia Issued Over 20,000 Country of Origin Certificates To China For Chinese Enterprises To Enjoy Tax Exception Benefit
In conjunction with the launch of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area in 2010, Malaysia has issued 23, 434 country of origin certificates (Form Es) with a total worth of US$2.8 billion dollars to China in 2009.

Minister Mustapa said that in addition to bilateral trade and economic ties, Malaysia also enhanced its tie with China within the region through the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA). Under this agreement, as long as the importing countries could produce the country of origin certificates of their products at the customs office, their good imported to that country within ASEAN or China would get tax relief or total tax exemption.

'The ASEAN-China Free Trade Area has become effective as of 1 January 2010. Ninety percent of the internal products circulated within the region, including electronic and electrical products, have already enjoyed zero tariffs.'

China Becomes Malaysia's Largest Trading Partner
International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa said the trade impact of China to the region was increasingly important as days went by.

'China has always been Malaysia's major trading partners. In 2009, for the first time, China has become Malaysia's largest trading partner with a total trade volume amounted to 127.9 billion ringgit.'

'In 2009, when China's Ministry of Commerce released its trade report, Malaysia was China's fifth largest trading partner in the world after Japan, Korea, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Taiwan.

'As for Malaysia's trade volume with China among Association of South East Asian (ASEAN) countries, Malaysia is indeed the most important trading partner for China within the ASEAN region. It is clear that the bi-lateral trade relationship between Malaysia and China is interdependent of each other. Such a trade partnership can be expected to improve in the coming years.'

China's Rapid Development To Benefit Malaysia
'China's rapid development is not so much of a challenge to Malaysia but rather an opportunity for Malaysia.' Mustapa said the Chinese Government has set its own economic transformation goals. China's development in various fields has given Malaysian businesses ample trade opportunities.

'Furthermore, Malaysia is also moving towards it own 'New Economic Model' reform. Both countries have a lot of opportunities to cooperate. Malaysia can also learn from China.'

'From regional perspective, the establishment of ASEAN-China Free Trade Area has reflected the obvious intimate relationship between China and ASEAN. ASEAN's total trade with China reached $192 billion dollars in 2008. From 2003 to 2008, the ASEAN-China bilateral trade volume grew on an average of 26.41 percent annually.'

In conclusion, International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa said that China would need to position itself in ASEAN when the East Asian Community was formed. China would also need to taking up the leadership responsibility to cooperate with partners with similar trade ideology such as Malaysia to maintain peace and harmony in the East Asian Community.

East Asian Community Concept Reveals Complex Reality of Asian Region

In the big Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) family, when problems exist between Japan and the United States, the cordial family atmosphere has become somewhat embarrassing. More importantly, the logical thinking of the East Asian Community as proposed by Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama even at this stage of conventional thinking, is that this is an East Asian Community involving “ASEAN plus 3 (ASEAN plus Japan and South Korea) or “ASEAN 10 plus 1” political pattern.
However, for such a regional integrated community, China is cautious. However, ASEAN hopes for an East Asian Community to have a wider scope to include the United States and India. In addition, the United States wants to get involved in it as well. Under such situation, the connotation of Japan's East Asian Community concept becomes unclear. It is blurred in its context of extension and expansion. The East Asian Community concept mooted by the Japanese leader can become a utopia.

Continual Rise of China
The main reason is that within the internal East Asia region, countries have not formed enough consensuses about this East Asian community. When the opinion of China, Japan and South Korea over the formation of East Asian Community remain unclear; with ASEAN member countries having doubt or even fear the continual rise of China; and with the United States worries that its status in East Asia might be sidelined, Hatoyama's East Asian Community looks more than a deep water bomb testing the water, but in the end opening up the geopolitical complexity of the East Asian region.
It brings to the reality that while the formation of this “regional body” is not difficult, but for all countries within the East Asian Community to reach consensus over what the community should do together become extremely difficult.

US-China Relationship
In addition, the US-China relationship has also become increasingly more and more difficult to predict. Interestingly, in addition to contradiction that exists in the US-Japan ties, of late, the function of APEC has also carried with it a dramatic color between China and the United States triggered by a speech delivered by Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in the United States over his “Asian balance theory.”
This speech by Lee was interpreted by the Chinese media as “the United States wants to contain China theory.” While it is meaningless to debate the merits and demerits on this issue, but this incident does confirm two facts. First, the Asia-Pacific framework is going through a process of fundamental change. But this change is not caused by the chain reaction of China's growing strength.

Growing US Interest in Asia
This new change has caused anxiety and shock to ASEAN countries as they look at their old pattern of operations; this change has also forced China and the United States to reexamine the role they should play in the Asia-Pacific region. Second, on the surface, the United States says that it hopes China will play a “leading role” in the region, but beneath the surface, it is the US intention to increase its contact with ASEAN region. The US's intention to return to Asia has become the accelerated diplomatic strategy of the United States.
Following the US accession into the "Treaty of Amity and Cooperation", the United States can now engage in “ASEAN 10 plus 1” dialogue with ASEAN region. In addition, the United States is also keen to improve its relationship with Myanmar, one of the ASEAN countries. But the progressive engagement of contact with ASEAN by the United States is regarded by some public opinion in China as the United States exerting pressure on China.
Moreover, when the relationship between the United States and ASEAN countries turned deeper each time through contacts, ASEAN member countries would always regard such deeper contact as their diplomatic achievement. This stems from the basic principle that as small nations ASEAN member countries want to hold on as a group “to keep warm” so that the best interests of ASEAN can fit well in the power balance between China and the United States.
The United States is still a strong power. Although China is also getting stronger as days go by, the Chinese Government does not exclude or reject the presence of the United States in ASEAN. But to the Chinese common people, they feel that perhaps the United States really has the intention to resist the influence of China in Asia. Of concern is that the Chinese people and the Chinese community might send out a message that is different from the Chinese official view about the United States. Such message coming from the Chinese community will create a communication pattern, whereby the official stance over the role of the United States in Asia is quiet, but the public opinions are making a lot of noses about it. As such, to the United States and ASEAN, both parties should understand the societal situation in China and to deal with public opinions coming from China calmly. They cannot habitually blame China as adopting “nationalism” over their remarks on ASEAN or on the United States."

Importance of APEC
In fact, both the United States and China have a broader dialogue mechanism in the form of China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue mechanism. Both countries are also more concerned on using the G20 Summit as their global platform. To both China and the United States, the importance of APEC has somehow faded vis-a-vis the G20 Summit and the bilateral strategic dialogue between them. At this APEC Summit held in Singapore, many of the problems or the media arguments between China and the United States were triggered by ASEAN issue only. A metaphor to describe this phenomenon is that: “It is like a small ASEAN making two big countries jealous of each other.”
However, the characteristic of APEC Summit is harmony. Although it is difficult to untie the knot of certain issues in the US-China relationship, but over wines and drinks, the national leaders of both countries can still hold their glasses and send cheers to each other. More importantly, at this APEC, China has already reminded the United States not to engage too much in trade protectionism. This is a prelude the Chinese leader given to President Obama as he begins his China tour.