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As Malaysia and China have become "comprehensive strategic partners" since 2013, the bilateral relations of these two countries have been getting stronger. However, party-to-party relations between the two countries have not received much scholarly attention. This article discusses the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) interactions with the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition and its main component parties, United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) in Malaysia. It discusses the origins of China's party-based diplomacy, the actual development in this area of diplomacy between Malaysia and China, and the implications of this kind of party-based diplomacy. It suggests that one of the main activities carried out under party-based diplomacy is for CCP to offer its governing lessons to other ruling parties, which has not been discussed much by other analysts of China's party-based diplomacy.
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In October 2013, China's president and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping visited Malaysia. During this visit, Xi made a five-point proposal to upgrade the existing bilateral "strategic partnership" between Malaysia and China to the level of "comprehensive strategic partnership." The first point was the continuation of the strengthening of political relationship between leaders of the two countries. Among the suggested actions to enhance political relationship was party-to-party diplomacy: "The two countries should also enhance party-to-party exchanges and share experience on governance and policy-making."1
This article contributes to the academic literature in two areas. First, the existing research on Malaysia-China relations generally concentrates on economic, geostrategic, and cultural issues.2 However, party-to-party diplomacy has not been the focus of scholarly attention. This study fills this gap and provides a description and analysis of party-to-party diplomacy between Malaysia and China.
Second, although there are many studies of China's foreign policy and diplomacy, much less attention has been paid to China's party-based diplomacy (PBD). David Shambaugh's study of CCP's International Department ( ... Zhongyang duiwai lianluobu, the unit in charge of conducting PBD)3 is one of the few available studies.4 Shambaugh discusses the history of the International Department, its internal organizational structure and personnel, and its functions.
Apart from Shambaugh's work, the only study on China's PBD in English is a translation of a volume on Chinese diplomacy edited by Yang Jiemian,...