Abstract

Since coming to power in November 2022, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has played the leading role in guiding the direction and posture of Malaysia’s foreign policy. Of particular note is the visible and marked progress of Malaysia’s relations with China under Anwar’s administration. The 2024 Joint Statement between Malaysia and China defines the relationship as one of a Community with a Shared Future. This talk will explore the temporal, structural, domestic, and individual factors that have shaped Anwar’s China policy. It will also discuss some of the potentially contentious issues in the years to come.

About the Speaker

Ngeow Chow Bing is Visiting Senior Fellow with the Malaysia Programme at RSIS, NTU. He is also Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya, and a Non-resident Scholar at Carnegie China. His research includes China-Southeast Asia relations. He is editor of Populism, Nationalism and South China Sea Dispute (Springer, 2022, with Nian Peng), Researching China in Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2019) and Southeast Asia and China: A Contest in Mutual Socialization (World Scientific, 2017, with Lowell Dittmer). He has published in various academic journals such as Cold War History, Ocean Development and International Law, China Report, The China Review, Journal of Contemporary China, Asian Politics and Policy, Contemporary Southeast Asia, East Asia: An International Quarterly, Issues and Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, and others. In addition, he has also published shorter pieces on media and policy-oriented online platforms such as ThinkChina, East Asia Forum, The Asia Dialogue, and others.