Malaysia launches a missile test.
It sends a message to China
that Malaysia will fight for the South China Sea.
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
Malaysia is flexing its military muscle in the South China Sea.
And it’s sending a clear message to China: Malaysia is no pushover.
Malaysia just held 6 days of military drills, called ‘Taming Sari 20/21'.
It saw “The Royal Malaysian Navy [carry] out a rare demonstration of its anti-surface
capabilities in the South China Sea, with the firings of three Exocet missiles.”
According to a regional security analyst, “[These drills] would send a clear message
across to other [South China Sea] claimants, including China, that Malaysia is no pushover,
and nor is it unprepared to use force.”
—even against the likes of China, which now has the largest navy in the world.
The Chinese Communist Party claims almost the entire South China Sea, putting it in
territorial conflicts with the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brunei, and of course
Malaysia.
This was Malaysia’s first wartime drill since the coronavirus pandemic began last
year.
And it's no surprise why.`
At the end of May, Chinese military aircraft breached Malaysian Airspace.
Malaysia scrambled its own aircraft after Chinese aircraft ignored warnings to leave.
It caused a huge diplomatic fallout.
Nevertheless, “Chinese coast guard ships have since early June also been putting pressure
on and harassing new Malaysian oil and gas projects in the South China Sea.”
And that’s at least the third time since last spring.
Malaysia is now seeking to buy new combat aircraft.
Of course, despite Malaysia’s recent military drills, they know that in order to counter
an aggressive Chinese Communist Party, they need allies.
Which is why earlier this month, Malaysia joined US led military drills in Southeast
Asia.
In addition to Western nations, like Germany and France, several other countries with competing
South China Sea claims also joined, like the Philippines and Vietnam.
And yes, the US and communist Vietnam are joining military drills together—that’s
how much everyone is concerned about China.
In fact, in a recent speech in Singapore, US Vice President Kamala Harris had this to
say.
“In the South China Sea, we know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to
make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea.”
Of course, there are major challenges for Malaysia if it wants to stand up to the Chinese
Communist Party.
More after the break.
Welcome back.
Malaysia is sending a clear message to China: It will fight for its territory in the South
China Sea.
But challenging China will be difficult.
It’s not enough to stand up to China militarily.
China is also powerful economically and politically.
China has been Malaysia’s biggest trading partner for a decade.
China’s oil imports from Malaysia have tripled in the past year.
And the coronavirus pandemic is devastating Malaysia.
“Parts of the country remain under lockdown and about half of the nearly 14,000 coronavirus-linked
deaths took place in the last four weeks.”
In fact, “Adjusting for population size, Malaysia’s daily reported Covid cases are
among the highest globally.”
Only about 35 percent of Malaysia has been fully vaccinated.
The goal is to reach 60-70 percent by October...
and China is more than happy to help with some very effective Chinese vaccines.
And that’s just the first shipment of a 3.5 million dose order.
Earlier this summer, Malaysia had actually announced it would stop using another Chinese
vaccine, SinoVac, because they had gotten a lot more Pfizer vaccines.
I guess they hope that CanSino is better than SinoVac.
But Malaysia faces another big challenge if it wants to stand up to China—its own political
infighting.
Last week, Malaysia got a new Prime Minister, the third in 3 years.
That’s not a great sign.
The new Prime Minister is Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
He was appointed by the king of Malaysia after the previous Prime Minister lost the support
of parliament.
“The new prime minister now faces an immediate challenge of taming Malaysia’s surging Covid
infections and rising death count, as well as reviving an economy that has suffered from
multiple rounds of lockdowns.”
All areas where China will be happy to help.
For years, China has been trying to get a foothold in Malaysia through corrupt infrastructure
projects as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.
In 2018, I did an episode about a shady Chinese built dam that could potentially kill thousands.I’ll
put a link below.
But eventually, the Malaysian Prime Minister China was working with on these deals was
convicted of corruption—which was partly tied to those China deals.
And his replacement wanted to scrap the China deals.
But then that guy was ousted in 2020.
And replaced with another guy.
And this month, that other guy was replaced with the new guy, Ismail.
And this new guy is part of the same political party as the original guy who was working
with China and was convicted of corruption.
I’m simplifying things a lot, but what’s important is, the Chinese Communist Party
uses political division for its advantage.
China is putting on a friendly face for the new guy.
Chinese premier Li Keqiang congratulated the new Malaysian prime minister.
And the Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce welcomed him.
So how will Ismail treat China?
China is increasingly aggressive in the South China Sea.
But China is also a potential source for Covid vaccines and economic recovery from lockdowns.
All problems China caused in the first place, but you know.
This is something to keep an eye on.
Unless of course Malaysia gets another new Prime Minister in a few months.
And now it’s time for me to answer a question from a member of the China Uncensored 50 Cent
Army, fans who support us and our efforts to expose the truth about the Chinese Communist
Party, by contributing through crowd funding website Patreon.
Tony Chopkoski asks, “How long for the ChiComs to build as many bombs as we have?
And how long for those missile silos to be finished?
Great question Tony.
China is rapidly expanding its nuclear weapons capability.
The goal is to be at least on par with the United States.
According to satellite images obtained by the Federation of American Scientists China
is building 110 new nuclear missile silos in Xinjiang.
And just a few weeks before, 120 other new missile silos were discovered.
Now we don’t know what’s in those silos.
They could be filled with concrete for all we know.
But the longer this goes on, the less anyone would want to gamble about what China’s
nuclear capability is or isn’t.
Thanks for your question and your support, Tony.
And a big thank you to everyone who supports China Uncensored on Patreon.
We could not do this show without you.
So thank you for joining us in the fight to expose the Chinese Communist Party to the
world.
If you’re interested in joining, head over to Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored.
You’ll get a bunch of cool perks, including the chance to have me answer your question
on the show!
Once again I’m Chris Chappell, see you next time.