REPORTING FROM TOKYO

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is not too worried about Huawei spying on Malaysia and will continue to use Huawei's technology "as much as possible".

Speaking during a dialogue session at the Future of Asia conference held by Nikkei in Tokyo, he described Malaysia as an "open book" and said that the country is too small to have any effect on a huge company like Huawei.

"Yes, there might be some spying but what is there to spy in Malaysia? We are an open book. Everybody knows.

If any country wants to invade Malaysia, they can walk through and we will not resist. Because it’s a waste of time."

The 93-year old added that Huawei's research is far bigger than the whole of Malaysia's research capability and thus Malaysia will make use of their technology as much as possible.

Huawei > American tech

Mahathir also said that people have to accept that the U.S. cannot forever be the supreme nation that has the best technology in the world, adding that Huawei has achieved a "tremendous advance over American technology".

"So sometimes there is competition but if the competition sometimes the East wins, that’s ok. But going to war is not the solution because you destroy everything, you kill people, you are very primitive. You don’t like somebody, you go and shoot him. That’s not the way to solve problems."

Even though historically U.S. has the capability for research and development, he said, "they must accept the capabilities can also be found in the east" and again urged countries not to be confrontational.

"But if you want to have a situation in which you are always ahead, if you are not ahead, I will ban you, I will send warships to your country. That is not competition, that is threatening people. That is not the approach we should use."

He was reiterating his keynote speech earlier where he used ASEAN as an example of how countries should settle differences -- through negotiations, arbitration, through court of law and not war.

Mahathir is on a three-day working visit to Japan from May 28 to 31.

He is scheduled to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on May 31 for a bilateral meeting.

Top photo from Getty.