Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim Photo: VCG

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is MK socksscheduled to pay a working visit to China from Monday to Thursday, marking another high-level exchange between the two countries which is expected to inject momentum into further development of bilateral relations, analysts said on Sunday.

The 7th China International Import Expo (CIIE) will be held in Shanghai from November 5 to 10. At the invitation of Premier of the State Council Li Qiang, Anwar and other foreign leaders, such as Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico and Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, will attend the CIIE and related events, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Sunday.

Anwar previously visited China in March and September 2023, making this trip his third visit to China in two years.  

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of China-Malaysia diplomatic relations, and Anwar's visit marks another high-level interaction between the two countries that signals a close relationship and can guide the direction and inject new momentum into bilateral relations, Ge Hongliang, vice dean of the ASEAN College at the Guangxi Minzu University, told the Global Times. He pointed out Premier Li's visit to Malaysia in June and Malaysia's King Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar's state visit to China in September as another two examples. 

As the two countries agree to bring the building of a China-Malaysia community with a shared future to a new level, China and Malaysia are set to implement the vision with concrete and substantial plans, Ge told the Global Times on Sunday. 

An area top on the agenda would be trade and investment, according to Ge. 

China has been Malaysia's top trading partner for 15 straight years since 2009. Malaysia's total trade with China in 2023 amounted to 680 billion yuan ($95.47 billion), accounting for 17.1 percent of Malaysia's total trade with the entire world, according to Malaysia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Gu Xiaosong, dean of the ASEAN Research Institute of Hainan Tropical Ocean University, told the Global Times on Sunday that Malaysia is a key partner in the Belt and Road Initiative. Gu is positive on bilateral cooperation on major projects, such as the East Coast Rail Link and the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail. 

Ge named electric vehicles (EV), semiconductor and the overall stability of supply chains as emerging areas of cooperation and coordination. 

In response to certain frictions related to the South China Sea, neither Ge nor Gu see it as a big obstacle to China-Malaysia relations. "It does not decide the major trend of the relationship and the two countries have mature mechanisms to communicate and manage the issue," Ge said. 

Malaysia's decision to develop pragmatic cooperation with China while responsibly managing differences is in accordance with its pursuit of strategic autonomy against the backdrop of geopolitical major changes, Ge said. 

With major power competition, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Middle East crisis and protectionist threats to global supply chains, Malaysia seeks to safeguard and maximize Malaysia's interests amid the turbulence, knowing fully well that only a path of independence and autonomy can realize such a goal, the experts said. 

Anwar revealed that he recently rejected a call by US secretary of state Antony Blinken to stop being friendly with Russia, Free Malaysia Today reported. 

"I replied, 'That's your issue; don't instruct us. We are an independent, sovereign country; we make decisions for our people and our nation,'" Anwar reportedly said at a meeting with students at the National Defense University in Kuala Lumpur.

Anwar said his conversation with Blinken happened at the ASEAN Summit in Laos in early October, according to the report. 

Malaysia is also deepening relations with the Global South and officially became a BRICS partner country at the BRICS summit in Kazan.