By Dr. Phar Kim Beng, Expert Committee Member of CROSS
1. Most historians, of any persuasion, would concur—readily—that China moves forward based on the rise and fall of the dynasties. Hence, whether it is Wang Gung Wu in the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore or Professor Lee Kam Hing once at University of Malaya, for that matter the late Joseph Needham of University of Cambridge, they agree in unison that China’s concept of progress is cyclical in nature.
2. There is nothing peculiar to this concept of understanding China in more ways than one. Karl Marx, for example, has long argued that all civilizations are material in nature. As and when capitalistic ones accumulate and produce more surpluses than is otherwise needed, the whole artifice of society will lose its equity. The rich will become richer. The poor, not for the lack of a better word, will become poorer. In due course, poorest.
3. It is at the point when the people are deprived of the most minimal access to food and shelter, that they rebel. Thus upending the state and any superstructures that make it self perpetuating.
4. For example, institutions such as the schools, places of worship, even the family units, will change. As Marx said “all that is solid will melt into the air.”
5. However, one does not have to understand the inner dynamics of any social polities from the left.
6. The likes of Ibnu Khaldun, often deemed by the West as the father of sociology, not Max Weber, has postulated in the 14th century A.D., in his book, The Muqadimah (The Opening), that tribal societies can rise to the peak to form their own fiefdoms. However, as the ruling elites settle into a sedentary lifestyle, sloth and a collective life are shaped by nothing else but luxuries will set in.
7. That’s when any social political and economic, even religious entities, will collapse. Paving the way for another group of tribe with stronger solidarity, known as ‘Asayabiyah,’ to push the powers that be out.
8. As the only living civilization to make the transition to the modern, even post modern era, China is not devoid of all the thrust and gestations described by the conventional historians or left leaning historical sociologists of any epoch or period. China itself is well aware that all things, in time, do decay.
9. Whether it is Zhang Wei Wei at Fudan University in Shanghai who referred to China as a “civilizational state,” or, Professor Tu Wei Ming who sees China through the optic of Confucianism, invariably, an “ethico spiritual” construct at Yenching Institute in Beijing University, each of these thinkers do understand all things material even non material are fungible. In radiological terms, they have a half-life.
10. Not all civilizations, much as they are subject to the processes of peaks and valleys, can disintegrate in whole, though.
11. China, Japan and South Korea, to name but a few in Northeast Asia can and has adapted to the onslaught of colonialism, colossal defeat in great wars, and a clientelist status that refused to budge.
12. South Korea and Japan, for example, have become the appendages of the US hubs-and-spokes system of security.
13. To all of the above, aside from the literati and laity in China that can understand their own vulnerable nature, the likes of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is not necessarily beyond the pale of their abilities: to get China right.
14. Anwar understands three critical aspects of China, all of which are cultural.
15. To begin with, in stating to President Xi Jin Ping in April 2023, that Malaysia is empathetic to the need of China to be rebuilt as a society of moderation and “common prosperity,” —-Xiao Gang Sher Hui—–Anwar pointed to the concept of “Madani.”
16. Where is the relevance between Xiao Gang Sher Hui or society with common prosperity, with Malaysia ? To begin with, notwithstanding the fact that Malaysia is registering an economic growth of 6 percent by the end of 2024, Anwar, too, believes in eliminating all forms of relative and absolute poverty. The quest of China, which President Xi Ping hopes to achieve by 2048 before declaring an all round success by 2049. In other words, Anwar does not believe in the sheer arrogance of any idea or policies. Even if there are more imperfections than the sundry, society at large has to rein in the “animal spirit,” of Capitalism; failing which social collapse is inevitable (again due to material excesses or its citizens’ rapacious nature).
17. Second, the whole process of Chinese governance, even when the best technology is at their beck and call, paving the way for a totalitarian society, China has actually chosen Confucianism as a template to secure the social moorings of the society. Thus, the authority in Beijing, has not forsaken Confucianism completely.
18. It would be far too precarious to rule on a single ideology such as the Soviet Union once did between 1907 and 1992. When Lenninist ideology falls through the bottom, Russia is left with nothing to absorb its failings, except to long for a return to a mythical concept of “Mir Rusya,” or Mother Russia writ large that extends to Ukraine.
19. In turn, causing Russia to be caught in a strategic midriff of he-said she-said over what the West or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had seemed to promise. Not an inch more.
20. As things are, combatants in Ukraine and Russia are caught in a deadly war of who said what and what was said towards the tail end of the Cold War in 1989-1991.
21. The fact that China embraces Anwar’s overture to look into Islam and Confucian is remarkable. With the main duty of explaining the Islamic world to Professor Osman Bakar, an esteemed scholar who holds the Al Ghazali Chair in Civilizational Studies and Epistemology at the International Islamic University of Malaysia. Interestingly, Professor Osman Bakar has also been anointed by Anwar to be the 7th Rector of IIUM.
22. Unlike other universities in Malaysia, IIUM embodies the vision of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which is composed of 57 member states. 22 of which are from the Arab League. As long as a member state has a Muslim population that is 1/3 of its total such a country can be a part of OIC. As is the case of Gabon. As things are, all signs point to China trying to engage OIC as part of its cultural, economic and political and strategic diplomacy towards the Global South.
23. China just celebrated its 75th anniversary. A liberation from its century long humiliation of unequal treaties.
24. Whereas Chairman Mao believes that when all foreign colonial powers are ejected from China, leaving China to re-construct China without Confucianism at the height of Cultural Revolution (1962-1973), President Xi Jin Ping recognized the spirit of revolutionary reform without the resort to any “Revolution” at all.
25. Through these three optics or levels of analysis, Anwar is well equipped to handle China short of being enmeshed in any Sinophobia.
26. This is why Malaysia’s approach to South China Sea is based on dynamic and Quiscent Diplomacy. Let’s have diplomats carefully going through the claims and counter claims to understand how best to reach a Modus Vivendi of a win-win-win outcome as China and Malaysia both agreed.
27. With China being Malaysia’s largest trading partner since 2009, the cultural mosaic that forms the trade matrix of contemporary China will keep increasing.
28. Whether it is a cyber economic platform such as TEMU or SHEIN, both of which are commercial rivals in China, their business discord can be exported to Malaysia too.
29. Anwar cannot solve all issues at all times immediately. Even to restore Malaysian Ringgit to the best currency in the world, exceeding the appreciation in the value of Gold, Anwar needed 20 months starting from the date he became the tenth Prime Minister of Malaysia on November 24 2022.
30. But to say that Anwar cannot understand China completely would be a tall stretch. Since China can be understood with humility. A value which Anwar has in abundance, ironically, by the unfortunate destiny of having first been imprisoned on trumped up political charges.
31. In an interview with Mehdi Hassan, one of the strongest debaters and moderators in the world, when asked by him as to how Anwar feels now that he is finally the Prime Minister, Anwar replied: “Certainly it feels good to be able to execute, and enforce various policies.”
32. Granted that Malaysia is growing at 6 percent and expected to rise higher in 2025, barring a geopolitical meltdown in the Middle East, one would say that Anwar has earned China’s respect. Little wonder President Xi Jin Ping did not need much coaxing from His Majesty Sultan Ibrahim to visit Malaysia in 2025.