National Interest In Strategic Partnership: Case Of Malaysia-Vietnam Relations – Analysis

In the context of the volatile world and regional situation, Malaysia has been interested in establishing strategic partnerships with many countries since 2010. The formation of these strategic partnerships has been taking effect, making positive contributions to protecting Malaysia’s national interest.

However, as a small and medium-sized country, how has Malaysia approached strategic partnership to ensure its national interest? In other words, through this article, the author wishes to understand more national interest in Malaysia-Vietnam strategic partnership over the past time. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim will pay an official visit to Vietnam from July 20-21, 2023 to deepen the strategic partnership in future. The relevance of this article lies in this context to examine the issue of national interest.

Theory of national interest

National interest often plays an important role in the relationship among actors. It is “a rather confusing concept” (Liotta, P. H. 2003, 128) and “rarely analyzed in depth” (Leesavan, Suttawee 2016, 45) or “the final arbiter of foreign policy judgment” (Jackson, Robert and Georg Sørensen 2013, 67). National interest is “embodied through government agencies” (Nguyen, Nam Duong 2010, 42) and varied “because the ways in which countries define their national interests are not the same” (Fukuyama, Francis 1989, 16). Some historians remarked that it was “often related to ‘balance of power’ among states” (Tansey, Stephen D. and Nigel Jackson 2008, 160). Other scholars mentioned that national interest was “rooted in the history, values, and aspirations of the nation” (Khan, Ehsan Mehmood 2022, 26) or “determined by the principle of legitimacy in the game and the individuals who interpret it” (Fukuyama, Francis 1992, 279).

Arguments of the international relation theory schools on the concept of national interest are quite different.Thesis of Realism emphasized the existence of an anarchic environment with the main subject being the nation-states, with the emphasis on the absoluteness of national sovereignty and interests. In other words, sovereignty and national interest here comes first. Realism considers national interest to be the ultimate goal that states pursue in their relations with other states, and it must be achieved at any cost or according to Morgenthau’s standpoint “with utilitarian calculation, the policies corresponding to the strategies that allow the maximization of national interests are expressed under form of power” (Guzzini, Stefano 2018, 16). In contrast, Liberalism represents “optimistic view of foreign policy and national interest” (Manan, Munafrizal 2015, 179). Liberalism also argues that national interest extends beyond the realm of security and power. Process of market expansion and international economic integration could contribute to cooperation among countries, whereby national interest is also interwoven through different fields. Meanwhile, thesis of Constructivism emphasizes shared identity, considering it an important factor related to interest on the basis of “reconciling each other, present in a more suitable form and able to be reinforced and complemented by shared values and cultures” (Coicaud, Jean-Marc and Nicolas J. Wheeler, 87). 

Framework of strategic partnership

Strategic partnership “although it has become popular in modern diplomatic practice and in the mass media, there is still no reliable theoretical analysis” (Czechowska, Lucyna 2013, 46) which is mainly descriptive in historical perspective. It is difficult to come up with a unified definition of concept of strategic partnership, but no matter what interpretation, this term also includes the meaning of the two concepts of partnership and strategy. “Partnership” can be understood as a relationship that shows a higher degree of cohesion than a normal relationship, while “strategic” implies a long-term cooperation. Some scholars stated that the concept of “strategic partnership” had been widely used since the end of the Cold War (1991). Another scholar argue that the term was “first used in 1998 by the Council of Europe” (Gentimir, Razvan-Alexandru 2015, 293). It can be said that the concept of strategic partnership between countries is quite different, “there are no clear rules when choosing partners” (Gentimir, Razvan-Alexandru 2015, 294). The term “strategic partnership” is also used in other fields.

The process of cooperation of strategic partnership is “based on open information sharing, common goal, and working in a mutual trust environment” (McLennan, Alan and Rod Troutbeck 2002). In fact, the term “strategic partnership” was also commonly used, first among companies and economic groups, and soon spread to governments and countries. The framework of strategic partnership in international politics is quite diverse, “established not only between states, but also between states and international organizations, alliances and even among continents” (Czechowska, Lucyna 2013, 38). There is also a view that strategic partnership “goes beyond the bilateral relationship and focuses on concretizing this bilateral relationship for broader goals” (Renard, Thomas 2011, 5).

In international politics, strategic partnership framework emerged as one of the “new forms of association” (Wilkins, Thomas S. 2012, 58) and “required more participation among parties, not merely a special bilateral relationship” (Nadkarni, Vidya 2010, 48). Through research, the author found that there was no consensus on interpretation of the concept as well as the framework of strategic partnership among countries. The reason for that difference may be from perspective of field of cooperation. 

For example, China defines a strategic partnership with two elements: “(1) comprehensive, covering all aspects of bilateral relations (such as economic, cultural, political and security), and (2) both countries make a lasting commitment to the bilateral relationship” (Medeiros, Evan S. 2009, 82). It has formed strategic partnership with many countries around the world and multilateral institutions. China’s strategic partnership includes developed countries, developing countries or institutions in different regions. China started implementing strategic partnership in 1993. There is a view that it should be divided into 3 main stages, namely from 1993-2002 (early stage) from 2003 to 2012 (development phase) and from 2013 to present (completion phase). 

The UK focuses on strategic partnership framework in favor of security cooperation because “in the Western sense (and some Southeast Asian countries are heavily influenced by Western culture), strategic partnership is traditionally understood and closely related to meaning of military alliance” (Nguyễn Hùng Sơn 2011, 23-24). Meanwhile, Russia is interested in promoting the strategic partnership through upgrading some bilateral relations to strategic partnerships, cooperation based on long-term mutual interests and not necessarily against another party. 

In the post-Cold War era, the US focused on “forging ‘strategic partnerships’ with both treaty and non-treaty allies. The United States holded ‘strategic dialogue’ with ‘strategic partners’ as well as with countries not identified” (Hamilton, Daniel S. 2014). However, there is a view that the US has a quite different approach to strategic partnerships when “only recently the US begun to pursue such relationships, especially under the Obama administration” (Parameswaran, Prashanth 2014, 262) although this pattern of linkage emerged in international relations since the 1990s.

Another scholar’s point of view concluded that strategic partnership born “in response to the international context (due to globalization and the end of the Cold War) is a foreign policy tool of states, combining both a level of sustainability and flexible” (Czechowska, Lucyna 2013, 51), but “in reality many strategic partnerships failed” (Ghani, Ahmad Bashawir Abdul 2006, 8) not as expected.

In general, formation and implementation of strategic partnership are also different in each specific case. There are even strategic partners that are not effective and are mainly formal or simply slogans, loose cooperation connotations, not implemented in practice. There are strategic partners established not based on the actual need for cooperation, but just marking achievement of a visit, celebration… In addition, there are relations in which strategic cooperation is still not commensurate with the name, while other cooperative relations achieved high efficiency, although not yet strategic partnership.

National interest in Malaysia-Vietnam strategic partnership

Either way, strategic partnership requires a higher level of engagement through specific legal frameworks, mechanisms or documents than normal relations. That strategic partnership can be demonstrated through a number of important cooperation areas related to national interest and aiming for common goal on the basis of mutual benefit. Convergence of interest plays an important role in driving force in the process of forming and developing strategic partnership among actors. Therefore, the higher level of convergence of interest, the more favorable condition could be in the process of establishing and developing strategic partnership. In fact, Malaysia often demonstrates its proactive, flexible and pragmatic foreign policy. It is “ready to conclude regional or bilateral agreements that bring significant interests to Malaysia” (Ghani, Ahmad Bashawir Abdul 2006, 1), but “follows national interest and does not want to be tied down or dependent on any partnerships” (Nguyễn Hùng Sơn 2011, 31).

Cooperation and interest are main connotation of relationship in general and strategic partnership in particular. It can be understood that cooperation of strategic partnership is often at a deeper level through specific cooperation mechanisms in order to achieve common goal (national interest). Any countries establishing relations with the outside world should consider cooperation and interest that could brought about on the basis of mutual benefit. When it comes to cooperation, actors often think of working together to achieve much interest. Cooperation can be expressed through result of different fields related to politics-diplomacy, security-defense, economy, culture, education, training… or classified as high, medium, low. Therefore, cooperation is manifested in many forms, levels, scopes and spaces. Typical forms of cooperation are joint action, collaboration or at a higher level, alliance or strategic partnership, but “having to proactively share vision and goal, this is important to have a strategic fit of purpose, mission, commitment and existence” (McLennan, Alan and Rod Troutbeck 2002). 

Cooperation and interest are “measurements” in determining level of relationship between stakeholders, including strategic partnership. Cooperation is not limited to bilateral channel but also multilateral channel. However, in practice, sometimes cooperation among parties may not necessarily bring about the desired beneficial result in reality. In the process of cooperation, complicated problems may arise, adversely affecting the relationship. Therefore, there are always two parallel sides: cooperation and struggle in relationship, including strategic partnership. Cooperation continues to be considered as the mainstream development trend coexisting with conflict and competition in international relations. The author believes that cooperation and interest have a dialectical relationship. That is, cooperation and interest interact with each other. Cooperation can bring interest and vice versa interest also creates more motivation to promote cooperation among the parties. This is evidenced by the practice of international relations as well as the strategic partnership among Malaysia and other actors, including Vietnam (a unique strategic partnership in Southeast Asia, as well as in ASEAN).

It can be generalized that from any angles, a strategic partnership is of long-term cooperative nature and prioritized by all stakeholders. Factor of national interest is indispensable during formation and development of strategic partnership. Malaysia’s cross-cutting foreign policy is “independent, principled and pragmatic, based on the values of peace, humanity, justice and equality” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia). With “foundation of harmonious combination of bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, it also divides foreign priorities in a concentric circle, of which ASEAN as the innermost circle and also the highest priority” (Nguyễn Hùng Sơn 2011, 30), Malaysia attaches great importance to the implementation of the “prosperous neighbor” foreign policy with ASEAN members, such as Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines and Thailand through cooperation in the “Eastern ASEAN Growth Area”, BIMP-EAGA (Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines), Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand “Growth Triangle” (IMTGT) or with Singapore based on “the Five-State Mutual Defense Treaty” FPDA (Singapore, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia) instead of establishing strategic partnership framework. Perhaps partly for this reason, Vietnam became a unique strategic partnership of Malaysia in Southeast Asia. Generally, Malaysia’s strategic partnership frameworks are fairly evenly distributed in areas surrounding Malaysia, but do not focus on Southeast Asia but towards countries with special economic relations (China, Japan) or members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation-OIC (Turkey, Pakistan), Non-Aligned Movement-NAM (India) and Commonwealth (Australia). 

Malaysia established 08 strategic partnerships. The most strategic partneship frameworks were formed in the period from 2010-2015, of which there is 01 comprehensive strategic partnership (China), 05 strategic partnerships (India, Turkey, Japan, Vietnam, Australia). Malaysia established 02 new strategic partnerships (Pakistan, New Zealand) and upgraded 02 comprehensive strategic partnerships (Turkey, Australia) at a later stage. Notably, the author has not found any documents that mentioned Malaysia establishing comprehensive partnership. Malaysia has just begun to pay attention to it since 2010, but it has gained significant result.

Malaysia-Vietnam relations went through different ups and downs in history. However, from the 1990s onwards, the relations have increasingly been consolidated firmly, creating favorable conditions for upgrading to the strategic partnership. One of important factors is the national interest. The event that the two countries agreed to issue a Joint statement on strategic partnership (August 2015) marked a historic milestone, creating a solid foundation for the process of promoting this intoxicating relationship. 

Bilateral and multilateral cooperation is the result of cultivating and overcoming challenging periods in the development history of the two countries’ relations. Taking advantage of interest convergence (or complement) to strengthen the relationship is a right and decisive step, but it is necessary to minimize interest conflict in promoting Malaysia-Vietnam relations. It is difficult to compare with other relationships in Southeast Asia, but Vietnam is considered an important position in Southeast Asia or ASEAN.

Malaysia-Vietnam strategic partnership has brought practical benefit to both sides, including contributing to maintaining an environment of peace and stability in region; expanding cooperation, especially in the fields of politics-diplomacy, defense-security and trade-investment; positive impact in participating in and building ASEAN Community; having more sharing and closer coordination in handling complex regional and international issues, thereby also helping to protect national interests. 

In addition, Malaysia-Vietnam strategic partnership has been also limited by shortcomings related to maritime delimitation, fishermen and illegal labor issue. Despite difference of interest in some specific issues, cooperation has been still a main trend in the Malaysia-Vietnam strategic partnership since 2015. A important reason for effective cooperation is because of taking advantage of interest convergence. In other words, national interest always plays a leading role in forming and promoting cooperation relations between Malaysia and Vietnam in particular or Malaysia and other countries in general in the context of increasingly tense international and regional situation, especially fierce competition among major countries.

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