China’s president steals PM’s thunder
Harper’s first trip to Malaysia overshadowed by Xi Jinping visit
KUALA LUMPUR, Mala y
si a — Prime Minister Stephen Harper could not have picked a less auspicious time to make his first visit to Malaysia.
Harper’s three-day stop in Kuala Lumpur, which begins Friday, is smack dab in the middle of the threeday maiden visit to Malaysia of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Many of the capital’s streets have already been festooned with Chinese flags bidding welcome to Xi, his wife, Peng Liyuan, and the 100 officials who are to accompany the couple from Beijing. Local newspapers have also been full of gushing reports about $100 billion of annual trade between the countries and a new trade and economic co-operation deal that is to be signed this weekend.
Needless to say, “This visit of President Xi is of the utmost importance,” Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Haji Aman told journalists.
Alas, as far as I can tell, not one Canadian flag has yet made an appearance in the streets of the capital. Nor has the foreign minister or the local media had anything to say yet about Harper’s impending arrival. Nor has there been any mention of the $2.9 billion in trade between Canada and Malaysia last year — a figure that was badly skewed in Malaysia’s favour.
That Xi’s presence will greatly overshadow Harper’s before both leaders fly to the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Bali on Sunday underscores the immense challenge Canada’s federal government faces getting Asia’s attention after a dramatic policy shift made trade with the Orient a top priority three years ago.
“Canada’s official policy is that Asia is a core interest. But when it comes to action and concrete programs to engage, it is lacking. It only talks,” was the candid assessment of Tang Siew Mun, director of Foreign Policy and Strategy at Malaysia’s Institute of Strategic and International Studies.
“For Malaysia and most of Southeast Asia, Canada is absent from our minds. It is not on our radar. The elephants in the room are China and the U.S. It is not intentional, but this is how it is.
“Canada must take some blame for not being wellknown. It has not been engaged much with us in the last 10 years. CIDA was here for a long time. Now we have the feeling that Malaysia no longer matters.”
One of the problems that Canada, like some other western nations, has had, is that its crush on China, and to a lesser extent the other BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa), has meant that it has not seized the big trade opportunities that are also present in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
“We’ve got China fever, but there is something in China’s shadow and that’s Southeast Asia. We must not ignore it,” said Ken Lewis, a retired Canadian ambassador and longtime trade representative in China and elsewhere in Asia, who now represents several Canadian companies in Asia and the Middle East.
“ASEAN is actually one of the biggest BRICS. There are 600 million people in ASEAN. It represents two- thirds of the market of China and is richer.
“But the competition in Asia is severe. Canada has to step up its game.”
It is not well known that the Philippines has recently become Asia’s fastest-growing economy. Thailand is booming agriculturally. There are also opportunities for Canada to do business in areas such as aerospace in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, as well as in agri-food and telecommunications across the region. That is in addition to Canada’s obvious strength as an exporter of machinery and expertise to Asia’s oil and gas industries.
However, to get a taste of such prizes, Malaysia’s Tang Siew Mun said Canada has to change its attitude.
“This is the Pacific Century,” the British and U.S.educated academic said. “Canada must ask itself this: Does Canada want to be part of it? If so, Malaysia and ASEAN matter, and it must engage, because if it waits, when it wakes up most doors will be closed.”
To support his point, he cited how Canada probably could have joined ASEAN’s influential Far East Summit a few years ago, along with Russia and the U.S., but chose instead to watch from afar.
“Now Canada wants in, but there is a five-year moratorium on membership,” he said, shaking his head at the missed chance.
“The situation Canada finds itself in is very unfortunate because Canadians are very different to deal with than Americans, and I mean that in a positive sense. Canadians are unassuming. They don’t push. They are never abrasive. All that works with Asians.”
There is nothing Harper can do to compete with China’s Xi Jinping this weekend, “but in an ideal world, Canada should have a much larger presence here than it has,” Tang said.