Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – Malaysia and China
By: Marques Jeevan Menon
Behind every graceful gesture lies concealed power. Behind every silent nod, a sword unsheathed.
President Xi Jinping’s visit to Malaysia this week is no routine affair. It is the step of the Hidden Dragon across the bridge of the Crouching Tiger. For those who do not read symbolism, it may appear like just another handshake, another corridor of trade, another line of ink on another scroll of friendship.
However, for those of us who understand the language of silk, steel, and silence, we know better.
Malaysia has long been the crouching tiger of the South Seas. A creature not loud, not brash, but full of latent potential. Our strength lies not in the roar, but in the pause before the leap. Our independence was not won through domination, but through deft balance, between colonial inheritance and cultural pluralism, between modern ambition and ancient wisdom.
We are a tiger in the tall grass of geopolitics, careful not to provoke, but poised to protect.
Yet today, as the dragon coils closer, we must ask, has the tiger forgotten its crouch? Has it become too enamored with the gifts of the dragon to remember its own power?
China arrives not as a visitor, but as a civilization that remembers every tribute offered since the Ming dynasty. The dragon never forgets. Its memory is imperial, its stride infrastructural, its breath, digital and financial.
It builds railways not just of transport, but of influence.
It offers investments that come with invisible terms, terms inscribed in access, in leverage, in future obedience.
It speaks the language of win-win, but those who forget to read between the silences risk discovering too late that the second “win” was always conditional.
When ports, platforms, data, and digital sovereignty become entangled in red silk, one must ask, was this friendship, or slow possession?
In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, swords are hidden in scrolls, power cloaked in humility. Likewise, Malaysia must learn to see again not just with the eyes of short-term contracts, but with the gaze of long memory.
The Belt and Road Initiative, though grand in architecture, is not immune to history. Similar roads were built by other empires, Roman, British, Soviet and all collapsed when they overreached.
The question for Malaysia is not whether we should trade with China, of course we should.
The question is do we retain the terms of that trade, or do we slowly surrender them in silence?
Do we remain a crouching tiger, low, watchful, deliberate or do we become prey to the dance of dragons?
The tiger carries no crown, but it bears a sword, sovereignty.
Sovereignty means that our digital infrastructure cannot be outsourced to another’s surveillance.
It means our ports are not Trojan horses for foreign naval logistics.
It means our debt is not a leash.
Our lands are not up for lease.
Our children’s future is not negotiable.
Malaysia must now build a Sovereignty Firewall, across its data, energy, infrastructure, and education systems and must do so not with hostility, but with precision. Like Master Li in the film, we must strike only when necessary but when we do, let it be with clarity.
What of culture? What of the soul?
Do not let them tell you that civilization flows in one direction, from Beijing to the archipelago. Malaysia, too, has philosophies. We are a civilization of the pantun, the tamsil, the silat, and the jati diri. Our Malay, Indian, Dayak, and Orang Asli elders have long known the meaning of sovereignty, not in jets and missiles, but in land, language, lineage.
We do not need to become a battleground between the dragon and the eagle. We must become the third pole, the philosopher’s pole. The wise peninsula, the poised tiger.
The Dragon does not conquer with swords anymore, it conquers with steel tracks, digital fiber, debt portfolios, and port leases. It whispers sweetly in the dialect of economic stimulus while its claws sketch infrastructure into the soil.
Malaysia’s trade with China surpassed RM450 billion in 2024, with China maintaining its position as our largest trading partner for over 15 years.
Chinese SOEs now hold strategic interests in ports (Kuantan, Melaka Gateway), energy infrastructure, digital surveillance tech, and property developments, some of which are nestled perilously close to security installations.
The Digital Silk Road has made deep inroads into our data centers and national AI frameworks, while Chinese e-wallet and e-commerce platforms are bypassing local ecosystems.
Now, during this visit, we see Malaysia warmly discussing yuan-denominated trade settlements, reaffirming Belt and Road cooperation, and aligning defense and education memorandums with Chinese institutions. We hear of new rail lines, deeper port integrations, and perhaps even green energy partnerships.
Let us not forget, the same yuan that is proposed as an alternative currency, floats in a state-managed system with capital controls. The same infrastructure grants often convert into equity-based control and the same educational exchanges sometimes become ideological pipelines.
Here is where the dragon’s embrace becomes dangerous.
Malaysia was never meant to be the backyard of any great power, not the British Empire, not Cold War America, and certainly not the 21st-century Pax Sinica.
Yet, today, the balance appears uneven.
When the Sultan sits astride economic ventures from Genting Highlands to casino-linked assets abroad, when key ports are leased to foreign firms for nearly a century, and when our national telecom and AI infrastructure is partially wired to Huawei’s protocols, one must ask,
Who really governs the Malaysian dream?
Have we, in pursuit of economic salvation, exchanged sovereignty for short-term solvency?
The danger is not trade, it is trade without agency.
The risk is not Chinese friendship, it is Chinese ownership.
And the failure is not collaboration, it is collaboration without critical leverage.
Empires have always seduced smaller kingdoms with gifts before demanding tribute.
In the 15th century, the Ming dynasty gifted Admiral Zheng He’s naval marvels to Malacca but it was not out of generosity, it was a symbolic assertion of suzerainty. In return, the Malaccan Sultanate sent tribute. A ritual of allegiance masked in diplomacy.
Fast forward to today, has the tribute returned, now in the form of exclusive digital corridors, exclusive trade routes, and exclusive influence over political narratives?
Where are the safeguards?
Where is our institutional skepticism?
Where is our moral and economic backbone?
To the dragon, we bow in respect, but not in submission.
To the tiger within us, we say, it is time to uncrouch, to remember your claws. The world may forget, but we must not. Our forests are ancient, our bloodlines are long and our duty is not to bow to power, but to balance it.
Let the tiger rise, not to roar in defiance, but to stand with dignity.
Let the dragon know, we are partners, not provinces.