amoy
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China, Malaysia to Hold First Ever Joint Live-Troop Exercise
Peace and Friendship 2015 will take place next month.
Peace and Friendship 2015 will take place next month.
Comment SectionPartly as a result of this, the exercise will also be much bigger this time around. Last year, only 21 personnel participated from the PLA side. This year’s Chinese participating force comprises 1,160 officers and men, two surface ships, one hospital ship, four transport aircraft, and three ship-born helicopters.
Kuala Lumpur and Beijing have long had a close relationship, with Malaysia being the first ASEAN country to normalize relations with China in 1974 and China now being Malaysia’s top trading partner and tourist-generating market outside of ASEAN. But as I have pointed out previously, the security component of the bilateral relationship has tended to significantly lag behind its other dimensions (See: “Malaysia, China Begin First Joint Military Exercise”). Initial efforts tended to be focused on exchanges and education, though more momentum has been added to defense ties over the past few years with formal defense and security consultations as well as joint exercises.
Oh well... there goes the notion that all of ASEAN is united against, to use the phraseology of a poster here, "the sneaky Chinese." It does actually go a long way, however, in proving my assertion that loose unions are for easy mutual benefit and not, as many hope, collective self sacrifice in pursuit of any one member's goals. Malaysia obviously has its own interests and in this case they express themselves in the form of closer military-to-military ties with China. Tomorrow may see Malaysia side with someone else against China, but that wouldn't mean Malaysia was joining an anti-China camp anymore than these exercises mean Malaysia is turning its back on ASEAN.
We should remember what ASEAN is rather than hope ASEAN will be what we want. ASEAN is a loose knit collection of nations who share a few common interests, but none so strong that they are willing to die for another member.
