Asia need not fear China: Mahathir

Asia need not fear China: Mahathir

Eileen Ng, Agence France-Presse, Kuala Lumpur

Asian nations need not fear China's growing military and economic
power because it has no tradition of foreign conquest and its
burgeoning market offers vast opportunities, Malaysian Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Monday.

Opening the seventh World Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention,
the veteran premier said China played a key role in balancing
other powerful nations.

"We are not afraid of China becoming a big military power and
gobbling us up because this is not the tradition of China," he
told some 3,000 businessmen from over 20 countries.

"Our experience in Malaysia is that people come from 8,000
miles away from Europe to conquer and colonize us. We are very
near to China but China has not conquered nor colonized us.

"China knows that to become wealthy, you don't have to conquer
countries, you can compete with other countries. Without
conquering the world or forcing the world to accept Chinese
systems, China has become very rich and prosperous."

Although China's low-cost advantage currently posed "some kind
of threat" to regional economies in competing for foreign
investors, Mahathir said he believed this was a "transitional
period."

"Over time, the cost of production in China will go up. When
it goes up, China will not be able to attract as much foreign
direct investment or even local investment as it is doing," he
said.

"But more than that, as the Chinese people become richer, they
are going to need a lot of products from other countries. China
will become a very big market... when they are richer, they will
become a good market."

Mahathir said peace was central to China's growth and he was
"quite happy" with the current leadership which had ensured peace
in the world's most populous country.

"Maybe there will be forces which demand that China becomes
more democratic but if it is going to be a more democratic
country, it should do so slowly and not have a sudden overnight
change," he said.

"Because that will be disruptive and will destabilize China
and maybe even cause wars or civil wars, which would not be good
either for China or Southeast Asia or the rest of the world."

Mahathir earlier praised overseas Chinese for contributing to
the wealth of many developing countries, and told western
corporations to learn to exploit wealth without being too greedy.

He noted the Overseas Chinese Confederation said were 34
million Chinese residing in 140 countries outside China in 2000
while another study put the figure at about 60 million.

Whatever the population, he said, their estimated wealth of
more than 1US$.5 trillion arguably meant they could be seen as
the third-largest economy in the world after the United States
and Japan.

But far from seeking economic domination they had kept a low
profile and "not been too greedy by taking everything for
themselves," he said.

"What we see today is an attempt at globalization which will
benefit only the rich countries, the countries with the big giant
corporations which tend to dominate the whole world," Mahathir
said.

"Chinese entrepeneurs exploited wealth but have been willing
to share with the locals and have not tried to dominate the
world. This is a good example for the world which is going to be
globalized."

But the premier urged overseas Chinese, the majority of whom
had migrated within Asia, to be "more visible in the nation
building process" of their host countries and help reduce
economic disparities with the indigenous people.

The four-day conference, held biennially since it was launched
in Singapore in 1991, is a regional networking forum for Chinese
entrepeneurs.