BELT & ROAD INITIATIVE IN MALAYSIA: PUBLIC PERCEPTION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC, CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS 

The study was conducted to examine public perceptions of BRI in Malaysia. Specifically, this project analyzed the opinion from the business and society perspectives, on critical issues such as economic impacts, social and cultural influences as well as the educational development. The targeted respondents were businessmen and the general public in Malaysia. In addition, desk review and media analysis were conducted on six main newspapers, two newspaper in three languages respectively, i.e. English, Mandarin and Malay, to analyze issues related to BRI as reported in the press. 

The findings indicated that generally, Malaysians are not very familiar with BRI yet. They may have heard about BRI but don’t quite understand what it is. In addition, the level of engagement in BRI activities was low. There should be more efforts to improve the visibility of BRI, especially through social media, to promote a better understanding of BRI. The news coverage in the Malay newspapers was rather limited if compared with Chinese and English newspapers. Overall, the findings indicated a positive perception of the benefits of the BRI. BRI is viewed as an initiative that would benefit Malaysia in its economic, cultural and educational development. At the same time, there were some concerns about the negative implications of BRI. Therefore, most of the respondents thought Malaysia should participate in BRI but cautiously.