Mahathir treads carefully amid pushback against China's interest

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, since coming to power, has taken measures against a number of projects in which China has an interest.

However, Mahathir is mindful about upsetting a superpower. In an interview with the Financial Times, Mahathir said Malaysia has to be careful about how hard it pushes back against Beijing.

"The powerful will take what they will, the weak will concede what they have, what they must," he was quoted as saying.

Yesterday, Mahathir (seen above with China ambassador to Malaysia, Bai Tian) confirmed plans to abort the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR) project.

Beijing-owned China Railway Group Limited (CREC) had been eyeing the project and previously announced that it will set up a US$2billion headquarters in Bandar Malaysia, the HSR's proposed terminus.

However, Mahathir said the cost of the project, which he said was an estimated RM110 billion, did not commensurate with the benefits.

Mahathir had also announced that Putrajaya was reviewing the RM55 billion East Coast Rail Link project, which main contractor is China Communications Construction Company (CCCC).

The contractor for the ECRL project was appointed by China in exchange for a favourable loan from state-owned Export-Import Bank of China.

Mahathir had said he found the ECRL contract to be "strange" as payment was according to other terms instead of on progress of the project. -Mkini