Malaysia borrows diplomacy tactics from China to trade palm oil, this is how

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is considering giving orangutans as gifts to major trading partners that buy palm oil from it. Orangutans belong to the family of great apes and are found only in the evergreen forests of Indonesia and Malaysia.

The government believes that it is planning an 'orangutan diplomacy' on the model of China's 'panda diplomacy' and believes that warm relations can be established between the partner countries through this. Malaysian Minister Johari Abdul Ghani said this while speaking at the conference of the Malaysian Palm Oil Green Conservation Foundation held on May 7. Ghani said the aim is to inform the world that Malaysia is committed to sustainable development and forest and environment protection.

Malaysia's new move comes as the European Union announced its decision to implement new deforestation control laws from December. The law requires producers to convince the European Union that seven major consumer goods such as soy, beef, palm oil, timber, cocoa, coffee and rubber do not come from new plantations that have been deforested after December 2020. If it turns out not to be, those items cannot be imported into Europe. Malaysia's new strategy is to avoid this problem.

At the same time, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) responded that attention should be given to protecting the orangutan in its natural habitat.

The orangutan is an endangered species due to hunting and deforestation. Their habitat has been massively destroyed for palm oil plantations.' The name Orangutan means 'man of the forest'. About 105,000 orangutans live on the Malaysian island of Borneo and thousands more in Sumatra.

'Panda diplomacy' is the practice of giving pandas found only in China to other countries. From 1941 to 1984, the Chinese government gave pandas as gifts to other countries. After 1984, instead of gift, they are given for a fixed period as lease.