Chinese premier to visit Malaysia for key ASEAN-Gulf summit, sources say

By Antoni Slodkowski and Laurie Chen

BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese Premier Li Qiang volition sojourn Malaysia successful precocious May for a acme with a recently established super-group of Southeast Asian and Arab nations which Beijing hopes to rally against Washington's tariffs, 2 sources told Reuters.

China is connected an violative to mend ties with the European Union, Japan and Korea aft U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed a planetary tariff salvo connected April 2, which helium abruptly paused for dozens of countries but China.

Li volition beryllium successful Kuala Lumpur for the ASEAN-GCC-China acme connected May 27, held soon aft the ASEAN Summit connected May 26, 2 sources acquainted with the substance told Reuters. China has not publically confirmed who it volition send. GCC stands for Gulf Cooperation Council, which comprises six Arab states including large lipid producers Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.

The sojourn of China's second-ranked authoritative comes soon aft President Xi Jinping visited Malaysia, this year's ASEAN chair, past month. While there, helium urged ASEAN nations to unite successful resisting "excessive tariffs" and advancement has been made connected finalising an ASEAN-China escaped commercialized woody since then.

The Malaysia meetings volition travel the precocious stakes U.S.-China commercialized talks successful Switzerland this play that volition apt laic the groundwork for deeper negotiations betwixt the world's 2 largest economies aft a play of escalation successful the commercialized war.

One of the sources said the readying of the summit, which began a fewer months ago, predates Trump's tariffs but commercialized is expected to beryllium precocious connected the docket with 2 large geopolitical powerfulness players invited to the region.

The Chinese and Malaysian overseas ministries did not instantly respond to requests for comment.

ASEAN is China's largest trading partner, with full commercialized worth reaching $234 cardinal successful the archetypal 4th of 2025, according to Chinese customs data, portion China is the Gulf Cooperation Council's apical trading partner.

The GCC's full commodity commercialized with China reached astir $298 cardinal successful 2023 portion the bloc accounted for 36% of China's full crude lipid imports that year, according to UN figures.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said connected Tuesday Washington is presently negotiating with 17 large trading partners, with immoderate commercialized deals perchance finalised this week.

U.S. officials accidental they mean to usage commercialized negotiations with 3rd countries to isolate China economically. In mid-April, China's commerce curate held a video telephone with Saudi Arabia connected responding to U.S. tariffs.

(Reporting by Laurie Chen and Antoni Slodkowski; Additional reporting by Mei Fong Chu successful Beijing and Danial Azar successful Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)