Policy paper

Malaysia–United Kingdom Strategic Dialogue, February 2022

Published 24 February 2022

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

The UK and Malaysia have enjoyed diplomatic relations since the Federation of Malaya’s independence in 1957, and both our countries are members of the Commonwealth.

We agreed and signed the establishment of the Malaysia-United Kingdom Strategic Dialogue on 8 November 2021, in conjunction with the visit by the Right Honourable Elizabeth Truss MP, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, to Malaysia.

The first session of the Malaysia-United Kingdom Strategic Dialogue was held in London on 24 February 2022, between the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the UK and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia at the senior official level.

Our relationship is founded firmly on common values: respect for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations; mutual respect and benefit; a commitment to rules-based trade and to low-carbon development to tackle climate change; respect and promotion of the rule of law and human rights; advancement of international law and multilateralism, and the promotion of peace, security and prosperity in line with the UN and Commonwealth Charters.

The Strategic Dialogue aims to refresh and strengthen the UK - Malaysia relationship and to discuss matters of importance to both sides. We both share the ambition to elevate our relationship in the future. We acknowledge that this Joint Commitment serves as a reference to the Malaysia-United Kingdom Strategic Dialogue initiatives and is not legally binding in nature.

1. Political-diplomatic co-operation

We commit to promote dialogue between our countries, specifically to hold an annual Strategic Dialogue at senior official level. This will be in addition to the existing UK-Malaysia Joint Committee for Bilateral Trade and Investment Co-operation and the UK-Malaysia Defence Strategic Dialogue. Meetings will alternate between Kuala Lumpur and London. We will seek regular official visits by Ministers in both directions, and meetings in the margins of international and regional fora. Both sides will facilitate high-level direct contact by telephone or video conference on issues of importance when appropriate.

We welcome cooperation as well as development of dialogues and visits between government ministries and agencies, political parties, the Parliament of Malaysia and the UK Parliament, and academic and strategic policy institutions. We support parliamentary cooperation and exchanges for shared best practice. We will also support parliamentary co-operation in multilateral fora.

We will work together to further good governance and rule of law, accountability, transparency issues and the fight against corruption.

2. Foreign policy

We commit to a closer coordination through multilateral fora, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth and within the framework of ASEAN. This will include exchanges on promoting the rules based international system; maritime security; conflict prevention; non-proliferation; human rights; democracy; media freedom; human trafficking; people smuggling; gender equality and women, peace and security; climate change; and environmental protection.

We will continue dialogue and coordination, both bilaterally and multilaterally, on regional security management, including as it relates to peace and security in particular countries in the region.

3. Global issues including the environment, sustainable growth and climate change and health

The UK will work with Malaysia bilaterally and alongside other development partners to support sustainable economic growth and prosperity, particularly in the areas of green technology and finance, sustainable urbanisation and development, water resources management, environmental protection, ocean governance, hydro-meteorology services, health, innovation, including co-operation on digital economy, smart cities, infrastructure and construction, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

We will work together, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to combat the urgent challenges presented by climate change through concrete actions in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. In line with our respective agreements at COP26 in Glasgow, we will strengthen co-operation and dialogue on climate change mitigation and adaptation at a technical level as part of this work.

We will endeavour to ensure bilateral co-operation to support initiatives pertaining to sustainable energy, low carbon economies and green financing.

We will strive towards transitioning to a low carbon economy by promoting trade and investment that contributes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, science and technology and green financing.

We endeavour to strengthen national and regional health systems through further collaboration between UK and Malaysian health experts and scientists, and to work together on non-communicable diseases, digital health, antimicrobial resistance, and science and innovation.

We will examine collaboration on research and innovation, including clinical trials, vaccine development and measures to ensure the medical supply chain’s sustainability to cope with pandemic emergency, support global efforts to develop and deploy safe and equitable healthcare for everyone who needs it.

We welcome the joint signature in November 2021 of a Memorandum of Understanding on the recruitment of healthcare workers. We reaffirm our commitment to implement this agreement, which will increase the exchange of healthcare workers between the two countries, enabling the sharing of best practice and helping to strengthen health systems.

We commit to increase cooperation on global health and pandemic prevention, preparedness and response to tackle the challenges of infectious and non-communicable disease burdens, antimicrobial resistance and the health impacts of climate change. We will work collectively towards the goal of ending the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. We will also seek to harmonise international standards on clinical trials, strengthen medical supply chains and enhance the global health architecture through close bilateral and multilateral health cooperation in appropriate fora.

4. Digital and technology co-operation

We will look for opportunities to share skills and experience on the next wave of technology like quantum computing, 6G, artificial intelligence, biotechnology including through support to ASEAN.

5. Culture and people to people links

We aim to creating conditions to promote greater understanding between the peoples of both countries. We will encourage networks to consolidate links and collaboration in arts, culture, sports, media, and tourism.

We value the contribution of the Malaysian community in the UK to the social and economic development of Malaysia and the UK, and in promoting friendship and co-operation between the two countries.

We will continue to work to encourage more media exchanges, promote greater access for each other’s media organisations and more co-operation on capacity building and training.

We are both committed to promoting gender equality in our two countries and ensuring access to education for everyone, especially for girls, around the world.

We will continue to foster inbound and outbound tourism and extend support to the operation of the Tourism Malaysia office in the UK. We will strengthen co-operation in sports training and exchanges of sport experts and teams. We will pursue a stronger co-operation in developing cultural industries by organising events as well as exchanging performing art troupes and experts in the field of art and culture

6. Education co-operation

We acknowledge the strong education ties between us especially in the tertiary education sector where more than 16,000 students travel from Malaysia to the UK each year, five UK universities have established campuses in Malaysia, and one Malaysian university has a campus in London.

We intend to promote bilateral co-operation between vocational training institutions of the two countries, and to further enriching the quality and range of joint education programmes and UK qualifications at governmental and institutional level. We encourage more co-operation between our universities and new private sector initiatives aimed at bringing UK educational opportunities to Malaysia.

We commit to promoting sustainable growth in science, technology and innovation, and to helping Malaysia equip its workforce with essential skills for the digital age. This includes sharing expertise of online education to improve the experience for both teachers and students.

7. Regional affairs

We agree to strengthening the UK-ASEAN relationship to promote collaboration in the three ASEAN communities: political-security, economic and socio-cultural.

Both sides may consider, as appropriate, working-level exchanges of views on regional issues of interest. Potential areas include:

i. supporting ASEAN centrality

ii. strengthening ASEAN mechanisms and narrowing the development gap in ASEAN through exchanges of best practices and assistance for capacity building

iii. ensuring security, peace, stability, safety and freedom of navigation and overflight and

iv. deepening the UK-ASEAN trade and investment relationship, delivering future growth that is sustainable and inclusive

We reaffirm the importance of maintaining and promoting peace, stability, security, safety, freedom of navigation and overflight, implementing the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in good faith, and pursuing the peaceful resolution of disputes without the threat or use of force, in accordance with universally recognised principles of international law, particularly UNCLOS.

8. Human rights and the rule of law

We endeavour to co-operate bilaterally and in multilateral fora, in the promotion and protection of human rights, including with regard to the implementation of international human rights instruments to which both are party and under the ambit of the Human Rights Council.

We acknowledge that both countries are currently in the Human Rights Council whereby Malaysia is serving the 2022-2024 term while UK is serving the 2021-2023 term

9. Trade, investment and the business environment

We recognise the longstanding trading partnership between both countries and look further strengthen this through a range of economic partnerships in both countries.

We look to expand and deepen the bilateral trade and investment relationship as well as pursuing trade that is more open and investment through global and regional economic integration, as well as upholding the open, fair, non-discriminatory, inclusive, transparent and rules-based multilateral trading system embodied in the WTO. We recognise the importance of creating long-term partnerships which promote business as well as government-to-government co-operation

We took note that economic, trade and investment issues will continue to be progressed through the UK-Malaysia Joint Committee for Bilateral Trade and Investment Co-operation as well as bilateral Ministerial visits, and at official level.

We will also continue to progress the UK’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

10. Defence, security and serious organised crime

We acknowledge that defence and security issues will be covered in detail by the existing Defence Strategic Dialogue.

We together with Australia, Singapore, and New Zealand will continue to support the long-standing multilateral defence relation under the Five Power Defence Arrangements.

We will continue ministerial and senior military official level exchanges. Priority areas will include cyber security, defence capacity building, defence industry, maritime security, military medicine and United Nations peacekeeping operations.

We endeavour to increasing exchanges of delegations at Ministerial, senior officials and desk officer level to further enhance bilateral co-operation to combat serious and organised crime. Priority areas include illegal migration, people smuggling, human trafficking, child sex abuse and exploitation, cybercrime, transnational drug trafficking and money laundering/economic crime. We commit to protecting and safeguarding the victims of these crimes.