BEIJING: Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Monday he believed China would sympathise with his country’s “internal fiscal problems” as he seeks to renegotiate, or possibly cancel, more than $20 billion in Chinese-funded projects. Mahathir said after meeting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing he did not believe in confrontation with any country and stressed the benefits Malaysia stood to gain from increased exposure to Chinese trade, technology and entrepreneurship.

“We hope also to get China to understand the problems being faced by Malaysia today,” Mahathir told a joint news conference with Li. “I believe that China will look sympathetically towards the problems that we have to resolve and perhaps helping us to resolve some of our internal fiscal problems,” he said. Mahathir did not mention the projects in question but he vowed repeatedly before his China visit to discuss what he called “unfair” Chinese infrastructure deals authorised by former premier Najib Razak. Najib courted Chinese investment and was a cheerleader for President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative in Southeast Asia during his decade-long rule, but Mahathir has questioned the value of deals and the risk that they would leave Malaysia “indebted” to China. Mahathir made no mention of Low Taek Jho, the Malaysian financier wanted for his role in the multi-billion-dollar scandal at state fund 1MDB. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Malaysia believed Low was being harboured in China and that a request to extradite him would be high on Mahathir’s agenda during his five-day trip. Reuters could not verify the report. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said he was not familiar with Low’s case. “But on principle, China is willing to, on the basis of mutual consultations, start normal legal cooperation with other countries,” he told a regular news briefing.

Li said China hoped that a further expansion in trade ties with Malaysia would result in greater balance in two-way trade and that China was ready to increase “to a fairly large extent” imports of palm oil and other agricultural produce to meet the needs of Chinese consumers.