On Tuesday, 18 May 2021, Thammasat University students are cordially invited to participate in a free online public lecture on China’s Investments in Malaysia.

The event will be organized by the Faculty of Social Sciences, Hong Kong University (HKU) and can be seen from 4pm to 5:30pm Bangkok time on Zoom.

The Thammasat University Library collection includes a number of books about China’s Investments in Malaysia.

As the seminar’s abstract states:        

China’s Investments in Malaysia

In this lecture, the speakers will examine state-state relations and new forms of state business relations that have emerged with an increase in China’s foreign direct investments in Malaysia. Focusing on investments in the industrial sector and through in-depth case studies, they adopt a novel framework to analyse these different types of state-business relations. These new forms of state-business relations are created from the different modes of negotiations between different key actors in each of the cases. Diverse outcomes were found, reflecting the disparate forms of power relationships and state cohesiveness with unique institutional architectures formed in each case. They identify a major shift in structural power in these new forms of state-business relations as China’s large multinational stateowned enterprises increasingly invest in Malaysia. A well-constructed institutional architecture is needed, not just in Malaysia but for other Southeast Asian countries, if foreign investments are to be harnessed to promote effective industrial development.

The speakers will include Professor Edmund Terence Gomez, Professor of Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics and Administration of the University of Malaya

The U Library owns several books written, coauthored, and edited by Professor Gomez.

They include New economic policy in Malaysia: affirmative action, ethnic inequalities and social justice; Political business in East Asia; Politics in Malaysia: the Malay dimension; China, India and Southeast Asia: paths to development and state-society relations; Malaysia’s political economy: politics, patronage, and profits; East Asian capitalism: diversity, continuity, and change; Transnational governmentality and resource extraction: indigenous peoples, multinational corporations, multilateral institutions and the state; Chinese business in Southeast Asia: contesting cultural explanations, researching entrepreneurship; and Minister of Finance Incorporated: ownership and control of corporate Malaysia.

According to his university webpage, Professor Gomez

has undertaken various research projects and convened numerous international conferences–among others, on political-business linkages in East Asia; the growth of national and transnational ethnic Chinese enterprise; the history of Chinese communities and their enterprises in Australia, Britain and Southeast Asia; ethnic conflict and social cohesion in Asia; equity distribution and government intervention in Malaysia –all of which have received funding from various local and global agencies, including the Sasakawa, Sumitomo and Toyota Foundations of Japan, the Department of Education and Training in Australia, the Christensen Fund (USA), the British Academy, and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) of the United Kingdom.

Also speaking at the seminar will be Professor Siew Yean Tham, Professor Emeritus at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Professor Siew Yean currently works as a Senior Fellow at ISEAS-Yusuf Ishak Institute, Singapore. She does research in Educational Policy, International Economics and Development Economics. Current projects include China’s investment in Malaysia, SMEs and e-commerce and ASEAN-related issues

The TU Library owns many books edited and coedited by Professor Siew Yean, including Globalization and social transformation in the Asia-Pacific: the Australian and Malaysian experience; Community in ASEAN: ideas & practices; Moving the AEC beyond 2015: managing domestic consensus for community-building; Services liberalization in ASEAN: foreign direct investment in logistics; The Emerging East Asian community: security & economic issues; Internationalizing higher education in Malaysia: understanding, practices, and challenges; and Changing constellations of Southeast Asia: from Northeast Asia to China.

In addition, Professor Siew Yean has coauthored articles in the South China Morning Post, including opinion pieces on Chinese investment in Malaysia as well as Malaysia and Indonesia.

In the latter article, published last year, she and her coauthor Dr. Siwage Dharma Negara observed:

Chinese companies have tended to conduct investments in Southeast Asia through subsidiaries in Singapore, leveraging the city state’s advantage as a financial hub.

For Indonesia, the first wave came in 2008 and coincided with Tsingshan Group’s investment in the mining industry in Sulawesi. The second wave came in 2015. This coincided with the signing of a comprehensive strategic partnership between Indonesia and China. Since then, Tsingshan has invested significantly in smelter projects in Sulawesi.

For Malaysia, Chinese investments increased after 2013 and grew steadily up until 2018. The investments are spread over a large number of sectors, ranging from infrastructure to manufacturing and services. In terms of approved investments in Malaysia’s manufacturing sector, China was the largest source country from 2016 to 2019.

For Indonesia and Malaysia, Chinese investments are linked with the countries’ own ambitions to promote industrial capacity as well as develop outlying and backward regions. Both economies have made special arrangements to facilitate Chinese investments especially in two key industrial estates – the Indonesian-Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) and the Malaysia-China Industrial Park (MCKIP).

Yet another participant in the webinar will be Dr Kee Cheok Cheong, Senior Advisor of the Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya.

The TU Library also owns books authored and coedited by Dr Cheong, among them China, India and Southeast Asia: paths to development and state-society relations; and Prices, terms of trade, and the role of government in Pakistan’s agriculture.

Dr Kee Cheok Cheong is a graduate of the University of Malaya; he obtained his PhD at the London School of Economics. He spent many years at the World Bank as an Economist and Senior Economist. At the Bank, he was Coordinator for China and Vietnam in the Economic Development Institute, now the World Bank Institute. After returning to Malaysia in 2000, he continued to work as consultant for the Bank and UN agencies. Dr Cheong’s work has taken him to China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia and North Korea and other Asian countries. His research interests include economic development, transition economies, employment and poverty and international economic relations.

Finally, also taking part in the conference will be Dr Ran Li, Senior Lecturer at the Institute of China Studies, University of Malaya.

Dr Ran Li is also an instructor at East Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, University of Malaya. She obtained her doctoral degree in Economics from University of Malaya in 2014. Her thesis was entitled “The Nature and Functioning of China’s State Enterprises”. Dr Li has been studying the Chinese state and state enterprises, and other research areas like development economics, urban economics and Chinese outward investment. Her specialization is in the transformation of China’s state enterprises, state enterprise system and China’s political-economic system, and her current areas of research include China’s global strategy and China-Malaysia economic relations. Her doctoral thesis has been published in book form as China’s state enterprises: Changing role in a rapidly transforming economy.

It is available to TU students through the TU Library Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service.

To register for the online event, students may go to this webpage and enter relevant information here.

For any further questions or information, students are invited to contact Miss Nicole Hung of Hong Kong University at nwyhung@hku.hk

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)