Thursday, August 22, 2024

Successful reset to Mahathir's past Indian diplomatic bungle


Anwar Ibrahim's three day visit to India from Monday the 19th to Wednesday 21st yielded an MOU worth RM8 billion, boosting trade, and described as successful by media today. 

The usual cliched words to report any formal visits abroad. It required a closer inspection of the achievements of the visits and a reflection of the political event in the last 5 year to appreciate its significance.

In particular, there was a strained relation in 2019 during Mahathir's second term as Prime Minister. He claimed India was bitter with his remark on Kashmir at the United Nation. 

Though true, Mahathir was not consistent and selective. He is silent  on the suppression of Uighar by the Chinese. 


The strained relation reach to the point that there was speculation Mahathir's flight to Pakistan was denied overflight access on India airspace. 


In his attempt to mend ties, Mahathir softened accusations against China for debt trap on Pakistan. He was seen moving towards the China-Pak Axis to the chagrin of India. 

That was till Imran Khan pulled out of the KL Summit 2019. The ploy to raise his international profile and attempt to challenge Saudi leadership of the Muslim worldfailed disastrously. 


Back in 2019, there was an unofficial boycott by oil traders on Malaysian palm oil in response to Mahathir's comment on Kashmir. A quarter of Malaysia's oil production is sold to India. Anwar's visit help rebuilt areas of potential trade for palm oil and palm oil based products. 

That diplomatic row affected rice and sugar supplies following India's decision to curb rice export. and spike in sugar prices then. Malaysia's price control policy on rice came the delight of consumer but resulted in low production and shortages.

Under Anwar and complimented by the 8-month appointed Foreign Minister, Mohamed Hasan, Malaysia was able to fall back to its long friendly ties to recently appeal to India for increase in supplies of rice together with sugar and onion. 

Today India announced reinstatement of non-Basmati rice export permit for Malaysia by 200,000 tonnes to the 170,000 tonnes in October last year. It is still short to the 500,000 tonnes request in view of the current poor crop due to severe draught up north. 

MCA's International Affair and Party Diplomacy bureau highlighted the elevation of the bilateral relation to a comprehensive strategic partnership with emphasis on leveraging on each other on manufacturing, IT, education and talent development.     

Anwar used the opportunity to seek India's support to join the recent pause in new membetship.of BRICS. Delivering a speech at Indian Council of World Affairs, Anwar said BRICS participation setve the purpose to diversify economic diplomacy.

The significance of the visit was the major reset with India as a result of Mahathir's personal bitterness that strained long standing diplomatic relations during his second term as Prime Minister. 

He failed to realise his attention seeking provoke-and-mend tactical approach to diplomacy was obselete.   


Under the Mohamed Hasan-leadership at Wisma Putera, it raised Malaysia's profile and the Prime Minister visit was seen favourably by Indian observers. 

India see the importance of relationship with Malaysia for the significance as next ASEAN Chairman, Islamic card for India and need of friendly partners in view of the turbulence in Bangladesh and Myanmar. Anwar has given his assurance for ASEAN to seek regional integration with India

There were childish disparaging comments made of India's relation with Israel. Another country's third party relation with another country cannot be limitation in Malaysia's relation with another country. A  diplomatic relation will come in handy when the need arise. 

The visit as reported by Indian news website, First Post, below:

No comments:

Post a Comment