PRIME Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Western countries must accept that years of research and development has improved the capability of countries in the East, which no longer imitates products from the West.

“Initially, they copied products from the West, then produced better products, and their research enabled them to produce even better products… in the telephone field, for example, South Korea, Japan and China spent much more money on research and development than probably Europe and the US.

“By investing more, the East has improved the products and the world must accept that new reality,” he said.

“(For instance), I understand Huawei has a tremendous advantage over American technology,” he said, adding Malaysia would use Huawei’s technology “as much as possible” and that he was not concerned over claims of espionage because Malaysia was “an open book”, according to a report by the Nikkei Asian Review.

“But if you want to have a situation where you are always ahead and when you are not ahead, I will ban you and send warships to your country, that is not a competition; that is threatening people and that is not the approach to use.

“As much as (before), we expected everything from the West, now it is coming from the East,” he said during a dialogue session at the 25th International Conference on The Future of Asia (Nikkei Conference) in Tokyo today.

“Huawei’s research is far bigger than Malaysia’s capability. We will make use of their technology as much as possible,” said Dr Mahathir, who arrived in Japan last night for a three-day working visit.

The prime minister said that the US prospered economically because most of its companies had invested in poorer countries, including in China, where costs are significantly lower.

“Many US companies are operating in China, Malaysia and other countries. They basically produce the components and parts that go into the products of the US and because of that, US products become competitive around the world.

“But if all these parts-producing companies were located in the US, the cost would be prohibitive and it would not be able to compete with the products of Eastern companies.”

Dr Mahathir said this shift first began appearing after Japan showed it could produce kitchen appliances at a lower cost.

“We pushed out all the products of the West, including motorcars. Japan was able to compete with the West because of their work ethic and lower wages. But if the US wants to do everything in the US, the cost will be prohibitive and their products will not be competitive.

“However, there are certain areas that the US will excel in. We know that they build fantastic airplanes, for example, their engineering capabilities and skills are very high.” – Bernama, May 30, 2019.