Mahathir Confirms Malaysia’s Commitment to Belt and Road

Written by Adam Garrie 

Veteran Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has confirmed that he shall lead his country’s delegation at April’s Belt and Road Summit in China. When commenting no the inaccurate claims that he is pivoting Malaysia away from its Chinese partner, Mahathir stated:

“We find that China is now the biggest trading partner for Malaysia. It is also a big investor in Malaysia. Our policy is of course to retain and improve the relationship between Malaysia and China”.

This further affirms the deep and broad relationship between Malaysia and China, one which has both a modern and ancient foundation.

Long before the Federation of Malaya gained independence from the British Empire in 1957, the territories comprising modern Malaysia had a long, fruitful and peaceful relationship with multiple Chinese states. In keeping with China’s friendly trading ties with the majority of south east Asian sovereign entities throughout the centuries, Malaysia’s predecessor states enjoyed cordial relations with China on the basis of mutually beneficial trade.In the early 15th century, the Malacca Sultanate which included Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore and a portion of Sumatra in modern Indonesia, signed an important security pact with China’s Ming Dynasty. According to the protection agreement, the Ming provided full military protection to the Malacca Sultanate. During Portugal’s invasion of Malacca in the early 16th century, it was Ming forces that fought against the European colonial power and for a time succeeded in holding off the first of many European subjugations of the territories that would become Malaysia.

Earlier this year, Malaysia’s veteran Prime Minister, the 93 year old Mahathir Mohamad spoke of this long history of friendship with China and explained how this forms the basis of warm relations in 2019. Mahathir stated:

“They asked me, how do you feel about China? I told them Malaysia has been maintaining ties with China. We have bilateral trade and we have been friendly to China”.

He continued,

“There are many Chinese in our country, but China has never colonised us. Who should we be fearful of? China or Europe?

Many Chinese nationals know me. They see me as China’s good friend”.

The Malaysian Prime Minister then turned to an issue of contemporary China-Malaysia cooperation that has been widely misrepresented ever since Mahathir returned to a leadership position in 2018. About these matters, he stated:

“Just because the Malaysian government asked to review the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) and cancel the Sabah and Malacca natural gas pipe project, then I am seen as unfriendly?

The Chinese government is aware that we are facing serious financial issues. I told them that we can’t afford (those projects). This is not whether we want it or not. These are bad projects in the first place and we can’t afford them”.

It is well known that the ECRL  (which is set to go forward but on a smaller and more manageable scale) was one of the many bloated vanity projects instigated by Mahathir’s notoriously corrupt predecessor Najib Razak. In cancelling the ECRL as initially conceived along with the gas projects in Sabah and Malacca, Mahathir was showing no malice towards China, but was instead trying to reign in the fiscally irresponsible policies of Najib. This became especially important as global financial trends exerted pressure on many emerging markets throughout 2018.

While projects in which China participates are always aimed at creating win-win outcomes for all partners, it is also true that China approaches its partners not with a patronising colonial style suspicion, but from a businesslike position of mutual respect. Therefore, if a partner nation of China seeks to use Chinese expertise to build something extravagant, it is not China’s duty to meddle in the sovereign decision making processes of another nation. It is likewise not China’s business to police corruption outside of China’s borders. That is of course the job of individual nations and this is what Mahathir’s coalition was elected to do for Malaysia.

Beyond this is the dangerous and defamatory “debt trap” myth regarding Belt and Road connectivity projects. Mahathir’s statement likewise dispels this myth by explaining that the decisions his government took in respect of ECRL and the gas projects were internal responses to the poor foresight of the previous government, as well as being more holistic responses to overall geo-economic trends.

The “debt-trap” myth is flawed not only in terms of the fact that it is based on exceptions which prove the rule that most Chinese projects throughout Asia and Africa result in win-win outcomes for both parties, but the myth is also flawed in the sense that it fails to grasp real world realities beyond the ideological and purely theoretical. In life like in geopolitics there is no such thing as a free lunch. While China is more generous in terms of loans, investments and cash injections than most other wealthy nations, it is not in any nation’s interest to rebuild entire continents without getting anything in return.

In this sense, China is engaging in normal business practices that are international standards when it comes to expecting to be paid back on loans that it readily gives to nations aspiring to further develop their economies and infrastructure and does so at levels that are history making in terms of their forward thinking generosity. Of course, instead of offering loans and other investment schemes or otherwise giving away money for free, China could simply come to a foreign state, build infrastructure and keep 100% of the profits from such projects forever more. This however would totally exclude China’s partner nations from the project and would amount to little more than soft imperialism.

Instead, China seeks to cultivate win-win partnerships by including the partner nation in question at all stages of a joint project. In this sense, China is willing to share the benefits and the responsibilities as is normal in a genuine partnership of any kind. Implicit in such relationships is the reality that every now and then one side will negate some of its responsibilities. In the over-hyped case of Sri Lanka, the government simply bit off more than it could chew and in agreeing to take over Hambantota port, Beijing actually saved Colombo both money and grief.

While Sri Lanka clearly did not think ahead before signing the final agreements regarding Hambantota, the fact is that the port is there and being run by Chinese operations means that it is nevertheless still bringing added value to the Sri Lankan economy. Even if for example China took operational control/ownership of Zambia’s international airport (as totally false rumours claimed in 2018), China would still be working towards making Zambia’s airport more functional and attractive. It goes without saying that having a functional and attractive airport brings added value to any economy irrespective of who owns the airport. This is for example true of England’s Heathrow airport which is operated by a company originating in Spain.

The fact of the matter is whether a Chinese project in a foreign nation goes well (as such things typically do) or whether they require some sort of reassessment as many kinds of projects throughout the world do, China is always blamed by those sowing Sinophobic narratives when in reality China is engaging in normal business practices yet tends to be hated by those infected with a zero-sum mentality because China tends to have a larger success record in foreign infrastructure projects than do rivals including the US and India.

Another problem that arises is that when nations take a step back from deals with China to reconsider – something Sri Lanka clearly did not do though it very well could have done – China absolutely gets the blame here too from those who see the world through a zero-sum prism. When  Mahathir Mohamad looked to suspend some of the vanity projects that his corrupt predecessor Najib Razak agreed to begin building with Chinese companies, he was, according to some hyper-Sinophobic media outlets “Standing up to China”. In reality he was simply revising business deals the way the new head of a private company would do so with a partner company after taking over from a failed predecessor. There was no anti-China malice in Mahathir’s revisions of deals – just normal business practices. This has now been explicitly clarified by Mahathir.

When understood holistically, it becomes clear that Sinophobic governments and media outlets tend to blame China no matter what it does, even when Beijing works to secure bespoke deals on a win-win model with any willing and able partner. The fact that China requires partners to exercise joint responsibility in exchange for sharing in the joint success of a project is in fact the opposite of exploitation – it is geo-economic empowerment. Ironically, those who criticise China the most are those whose records of partnerships with developing nations have been the most historically scandalous.

Of course, Malaysia still has many internal issues to address in respect of affirmative action policies which discriminate against the country’s Han Chinese minority, but this issue which is central to the internal development of Malaysia must not be conflated with Malaysia’s trading relations with the People’s Republic of China.

In this sense, Mahathir has offered an unequivocal reassurance that healthy trading relations between the people of Malaysia and China will continue, just as they had done for centuries prior to the reckless imperialist conquests of Malaysia by Portugal, The Netherlands and finally the Britain.

Mahathir’s attendance of this year’s Belt and Road Summit will add to the deep and historically routed ties between the two countries on a win-win basis.

Adam Garrie: US Veto Power, A Weapon of Mass Obstruction Granting Impunity for Israeli Killings

TEHRAN (FNA)- Geopolitical expert Adam Garrie says that the Israeli regime’s possession of nuclear weapons and the American veto power at the UN Security Council have provided the regime with a feeling of impunity for their daily violations of international laws.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with FNA, Adam Garrie said that the US exercises its veto power “like a weapon of mass obstruction” to shield the Zionist regime at the UN Security Council.

Mr. Garrie believes that the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, acts more like the Ambassador of the Zionist regime than that of the United States. He likened the UN Security Council to “a shopping center where Zionist propaganda is for sale” and the US envoy to “a shop keeper lying to her customers” while trying to insult the intelligence of the whole world.

Adam Garrie is the director of Eurasia Future, a geopolitical expert and a frequent commentator on international news outlets such as RT and Press TV. He is a global specialist with an emphasis on Eurasian integration. Garrie’s articles have been published in the Oriental Review, Asia Times, Geopolitica Russia, Global Research, RT’s Op-Edge, Global Village Space and others.

FNA has conducted an interview with Adam Garrie about Trump’s relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem Al-Quds and possible motives behind the move and also the recent killings of Palestinian protesters by Israeli army.

Below you will find the full text of the interview.

Q: Delivering on his campaign promise and in defiance of all global warnings, Donald Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem al-Quds. Many believe that this move by Trump has effectively killed fantasies that Washington is a neutral party in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. How do you think that would play in the current and future developments surrounding the issue?

A: The United States has never been a neutral arbitrator in the conflict but has always done its utmost to preserve geopolitical Zionist mythology while tempting naive Palestinian leaders into so-called peace deals which were in reality a surrender of their land that was stolen at gunpoint during the Nakba. Under the brash character that is Trump, the illusion of neutrality has been replaced by a vulgar mania which seeks to elevate an artificial colonial state to the level not only of a superpower but of one which somehow possesses a unique right to slaughter, steel and pillage at will. This realization has made even the most naive Palestinian politicians wake up to a long standing reality that the only way to secure justice is through a multilateral approach that sidelines the US into a position as a kind of advocate for the regime while others perform their duty as genuine arbitrators.

In terms of these multilateral mediators what is needed is a group of nations and super-national bodies which include Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, the Arab League (or some variant thereof), the African Union, ASEAN, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, European Union, India and Pakistan. Only when these entities come together to speak with the directly affected parties can there be any hope of a genuine settlement free from the extremist dogma of the United States and the totally pro-Zionist Donald Trump.

Q: Since the beginning of the protests dubbed as the “Great March of Return”, the Israeli forces have killed and wounded many Palestinian civilians, including the protesters, members of the press and medical workers. It seems as if the regime in Tel Aviv feels an atmosphere of impunity where it can act beyond all international laws and conventions. Where do you think this feeling of immunity comes from?

A: The impunity comes from two main places. First of all, in spite of the black propaganda leveled against Iran from the sinister elements in Tel Aviv and Washington, there is only one country in the history of the Middle East that has had, still has and likely will continue to have nuclear weapons. This power is the Zionist regime. Because of this, the entire world stands worried that the nuclear war hungry maniacs in Tel Aviv might push the button should the world decide to take a full stand for Palestinian justice.

The other reason is that the United States affords the regime a pass when it flaunts international law on a daily basis. The US wields its UN Security Council veto like a weapon of mass obstruction while the current US Ambassador to the UN acts as though she is more the Ambassador of the Zionist regime than that of the multi-cultural and multi-religious United States.

Between its vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and the subservient attitude of Washington, the regime’s war crimes are never prosecuted because the current mechanisms of so-called international justice are little more than neo-colonial justice. They are perfectly happy to harass elderly Serbians who haven't been in politics for decades, African leaders without a penny in their pocket and the anti-imperialist President of The Philippines, but this international justice system does nothing for the genuine victims of terror whether those in Palestine, Syria, Kashmir or beyond.

Q: The US Ambassador to the UN said “no country would act with greater restraint than Israel” as the world was witnessing the rise in the toll of Palestinian civilians killed and wounded by Israeli live fire. How do you evaluate her words?

A: If the issue were not so serious it would be comedic. The Zionist regime which opens live fire from machine guns, weaponized drones, helicopters and missiles on unarmed youths protesting for the right to return to their own homes is the most immoderate regime on the planet. They kidnap children like Ahed Tamimi and throw her into their dungeons, they murder men in wheelchairs who lost their legs in the last war against Palestine, they recently shot dead a 21 year old female nurse with her hands in the air. There are also videos of regime soldiers laughing as they murder Palestinian children in cold blood. This is not restraint - this is open criminality on a systematic scale. Nikki Haley can try and insult the intelligence of the world but she is only insulting herself by acting as the saleswoman of death. She uses and abuses the UN Security Council as a shopping center where Zionist propaganda is for sale and she is little more than a shop keeper lying to her customers as though they are too stupid to know that the shoe does not fit.

Q: Israel has rejected international calls for probes into recent killings and insisted that its open-fire rules for Gaza will not change. Some Western states, particularly the US and Britain, who call themselves champions of human rights, have supported the Israeli crimes against Palestinians. The UN has also failed to restore the rights of the people. What is your assessment? What role can nations of the world play in protecting the rights of the oppressed people of Palestine?

A: The UN needs urgent reform. In 2009 the Libyan Revolutionary Leader Muammar Gaddafi spoke of how the UN must abolish the Security Council and must instead leave the most important global security decisions of the day to the all-nations General Assembly. Furthermore, Gaddafi spoke of giving various blocs of nations from the developing world a greater say whether it be a pan-Arab bloc, a South East Asian bloc, an African bloc, a Latin American bloc, etc. Until such a thing happens, the Security Council will continue to be at the mercy of the one nation that vetoes anything remotely related to genuine human rights and this nation is the United States of America.

As for taking action in the present day, if nations concerned for Palestine wanted to do something that mattered, they would jointly enact a total economic boycott of the regime. This could be further enforced by boycotting other nations that continue to trade with Tel Aviv. Such a method helped to end Apartheid in South Africa and over time it could help to end the long suffering of Palestine.

Q: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has recently said that Israelis “have the right to have their own land” and that formal relations between Tel Aviv and Riyadh could be mutually beneficial. The Saudi regime once, at least apparently, opposed Israel’s right to exist. What do you think has changed in Riyadh to now come out as an apologist for the Zionist regime and betray the Palestinian cause? How do you think would other fellow Arab and Muslim nations think of the Kingdom?

A: Saudi Arabia is an ally of the Zionist regime, no one pretends otherwise anymore, not those in Washington, not those in Riyadh and not those in Tel Aviv – it is the biggest open secret in the world. Just because there are no “formal” relations between the two regimes does not make the reality different. Saudi Arabia is banking on the US ignoring its increased economic relations with Russia and China, something that would normally lead to US calls for “regime change” in the Arab world, because if worse comes to worse Riyadh can turn to the US and say “if you go to war with us, we may be replaced by leaders who are anti-Zionist, who refuse to desecrate the holy cities of Mecca and Medina with commercialized events and buildings and who stand up for our brothers in Palestine”. Of course there is also anti-Iranian mania which connects the two nations but ultimately, for all its expensive arms, Saudi Arabia is militarily weak. Here Riyadh is merely following Tel Aviv down a path towards its own prejudices.

Ultimately though, Saudi Arabia’s support for the Zionist regime is its insurance policy against any criticism from Washington.

Israel authors a neo-Balfour declaration for Kurds

By: Adam Garrie

TEHRAN, – Israel, having no allies in the region, is advocating establishment of a Kurdish state in the Middle East that could reasonably amount to a client state.

One of the most controversial documents of modern history is also one of the shortest. This was the Balfour Declaration issued on 2 November 1917. This document pledged the British Empire’s support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine which in 1917 was the sovereign territory of Ottoman Turkey.

The text of the document, drafted as a letter, reads as follows:

“Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet

His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours,

Arthur James Balfour”.

This document continues to haunt the Middle East as Israel remains a state whose borders were not only forged during a time of foreign colonization of the Middle East but far more importantly, it is the only state in the Middle East that permits the de-facto settlement of contemporary colonials to land which rightfully belongs to its indigenous inhabitants, the Palestinians of all religious faiths.

One would think that with global popular opinion turning against the Israel project, that its leaders would know a thing or two about being discrete about neo-colonial rhetoric, but this is not the case.

Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that he is positively in favor of the establishment of a Kurdish state in the Middle East and further called Kurds “brave, pro-Western people who share our values”.

The gushing language used by Netanyahu is eerily similar to that used by Balfour in 1917. What’s more is that both statements totally disregard the fact that the only people who can legally allow for Kurdish autonomy, let alone a Kurdish state are those who are the legal sovereigns of the territory that Kurds seek to annex. These countries are in no particular order, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey.

Each of these states is firmly opposed to Kurdish annexation of their territory just as Palestinians were firmly opposed to the British and later UN annexation of Palestine in order to make a state for foreign Jews who were overwhelmingly European.

The thinking behind Netanyahu’s statement is clearly similar to that behind the British elites of the early 20th century.  Just as the British Empire was a colonial regime facing decline, so too is Israel a colonial regime whose plans to annex its neighbors have been met with fierce resistance, most recently when in 2006, Hezbollah liberated southern Lebanon from the last vestiges of Israeli occupation.

In 1982, the Zionist publication Kivunim revealed the Yinon Plan, a long term goal for geo-strategic expansion of the Israeli state to cover territories of Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

The only analogous plan in modern history is the comparatively recent plan for Greater Albania, a plan which would see the existing Albanian regime in Tirana annex parts of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece.

Like many colonial powers preferring divide and rule techniques to outright conquest, it would appear that Israel has decided to do with the Kurds what the British once did with the Zionists: support their claims to someone else’s land. The main difference being that Kurds are settled residents in Middle Eastern nations whereas the European Jewry who made up Israel’s early population had no real connection to Palestine other than those justified by pseudo-scientific Zionist ideology.

It boils down to Israel having no allies in the region and increasingly beyond and therefore advocating for the creation of a state that could reasonably amount to a client state just as Israel remains dependent greatly on money and immigration for Europe and North America to sustain its military and economy.

But just as many colonial plans backfire, so too could this. A would-be Kurdish state in the Middle East would have Israel as a lone regional ally (with the speculative possibility of Saudi Arabia as a kind of semi-ally) and it would likely have an ally in the United States. Russia’s position would most likely evolve into one of agnostic acceptance, but again this depends a great deal on how Turkey’s burgeoning alliance with Russia pans out. At the end of the day, no one in Russia would trade Turkey for a Kurdistan, even in spite of an historical record which might point to the contrary but which bears no relationship to present economic and geo-strategic realities.

Because of this, it is wise to remember that although America is the world’s number one supporter of Israel, not all American Presidents have friendly relations with Israel leaders. Nixon, Clinton and Obama often had a great deal of difficulty working with intractable Israeli leaders.

And this is where a Kurdish state might work to Israel’s disadvantage. If a would-be Kurdistan and Israel remained America’s two satellites in the Middle East, America would have the distinct advantage of being able to pick a ‘flavor of the month’ or even year.

All it would take is a difficult Israeli leader to appear less attractive to moderates in Washington vis-à-vis a Kurdish leader desperate for US aid to make Kurdistan America’s number one friend in the region.

With all things colonial, it is well advised to be careful what you wish for. The law of unintended consequences which exists in all geo-political relations is always magnified when the powers that be start to re-draw the geo-political map.

Here’s why Saudi Arabia and Israel are allies in all but name

ADAM GARRIE

Israel and Saudi Arabia both seek to destroy Syria and in doing so, destroy the last bastion of secular, tolerant and modern Arab government that remains totally un-compromised in its foreign and economic policies. Those who claim that Israel is opposed to Donald Trump’s now openly warm relations with Saudi Arabia are missing the actual point. On the surface, many assume that Israel and Saudi Arabia have poor relations. Neither country has diplomatic relations with one another, one is a self-styled Jewish state while the other is a Wahhabi Sunni monarchy. But they both have the same regional goals, they both have the same enemies and both are intellectual anachronisms in a 20th century that has seen the fall of multiple monarchies, the end of traditional European colonialism and the fall of segregated regimes in Africa (Apartheid South Africa and UDI Rhodesia for example). Israel and Saudi Arabia have always been enemies of secular, Arab nationalist states and federations. Whether an Arab state is Nasserist, Ba’athist, socialist, Marxist-Leninist or in the case of Gaddafi’s Libya a practitioner of the post-Nassierist Third Political Theory: Israel and Saudi Arabia have sought to and in large part have succeeded, with western help, at destroy such states. Unlike Israel’s Apartheid military state and Saudi Arabia’s human rights free monarchy, the aforementioned Arab styles of government are worthy of the word modern. These are countries which had progressive mixed economies, had secular governments and societies, had full constitutional rights for religious and ethnic minorities, they championed women’s rights and engaged in mass literacy programmes and infrastructural projects. In the case of the Syrian Arab Republic, such things still apply. Such things still have wide appeal not just in the Arab world but universally. The very charter of the UN subtly implies that such goals are the way forward. Secular Arab governments have therefore not fallen due to their lack of popularity but they have fallen due to political and military aggression from Israel, monetary blackmail and terrorism funded from and by Saudi Arabia and a combination of all of the above from the United States and her European allies. Useful idiots in the west who claim that groups like the obscurantist and terroristic Muslim Brotherhood represent majoritarian public opinion in secular Arab states are simply worse than useful idiots: they are lying, dangerous idiots. This is why Syria is a country that Israel and Saudi Arabia are both interested in destroying. Both countries have indeed invested time and money into destroying Syria and thus far they have not been successful. Syria is the last secular Arab Ba’athist state in the world. Unlike in Israel, minorities have full constitutional rights and unlike in Saudi Arabia, all religions are tolerated. In Syria, women can act, speak and dress as they wish. Syria’s independence has in the past thwarted Israel’s ambition to annex Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and additional parts of Syria itself (Israel still occupies Syria’s Golan Heights). Syria has also been a true ally of the oppressed Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Likewise, Syria has hurt Saudi Arabia and fellow backward Gulf state Qatar’s ambitions to expand their petro-empires. Qatar remains desirous to construct a pipeline running through Syria, something Qatar wants done on its terms and its terms alone. Furthermore, since Saudi Arabia has little to offer the world in terms of culture, Saudi attempts to control and colonise their more educated and worldly Levantine Arabs is done through a combination of bribery and through the use of Salafist terrorist proxies such as ISIS and al-Qaeda. There is also a psychological element to the mutual warfare which Saudi Arabia and Israel have waged on secular states like Syria. So long as Syria exists, Saudi Arabia cannot say that there is no alternative to its backward style of government in the Arab world. Of course, others like Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt are secular states (Iraq less so now than at any time since independence), but these states have been wholly compromised through war and in the case of Egypt through political malaise. Syria remains strongly independent and refuses to surrender its values. Both countries also seek to destroy Iran. Iran unlike Saudi Arabia and Israel, practices an ethical foreign policy. Far from wanting to export its Islamic Revolution, Iran has been a staunch ally to secular Syria and has been at the forefront of the fight against Salafist terrorism like ISIS and al-Qaeda. Iran has also taken a principle stance on Palestine, whilst most Arab states with the exception of Syria, have long ago given up on the Palestinian cause. Israel and Saudi Arabia have superficial differences in foreign policy, but their main goals are exactly the same. Both seek to retard the progress of the Arab world and to taint Islam as something it is not. Saudi Arabia and Israel both want non-Muslims to think of Islam as something representing bombs, female enslavement, physical mutilation and barbarity. Syria has shown the world that real Islam looks a lot like Christianity and frankly a lot more like Christianity than atheistic Europe does in 2017. Saudi Arabia and Israel are allies in the material and psychological war against secular, modern Arab countries. It is a war which the United States has been fighting on behalf of Riyadh and Tel Aviv for decades.