KUALA LUMPUR, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia is strongly against the unreasonable crackdown on Chinese companies by the United States, and is willing to work with China to uphold economic globalization and the multilateral trade system, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said.

Mahathir made the remarks on Thursday when he met with Li Xi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee.

During the meeting, Li said since the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Malaysia 45 years ago, the relations between the two countries have grown from strength to strength with fruitful pragmatic cooperation.

Li said the purpose of his visit to Malaysia was to implement the important consensus reached between leaders of both countries on further elevating bilateral ties and deepening cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

The visit was also aimed at strengthening party-to-party exchanges and promoting the pragmatic cooperation between Guangdong province and Malaysia, he added.

Li briefed Mahathir on China's steadfast position and China's determination and confidence in the current trade tensions with the United States, expressing China's willingness to join hands with Malaysia in upholding multilateralism and in building an open world economy.

He welcomes Malaysia to share the opportunities by participating in the development of China's Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

For his part, Mahathir, who is also chairman of the ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition, said Malaysia attaches great importance to the bilateral relations with China and hopes to strengthen all-around pragmatic cooperation and deepen party-to-party and regional exchanges.

He said Malaysia is ready to expand the win-win cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative and to actively participate in the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

At the invitation of the Pakatan Harapan coalition, Li led a CPC delegation to visit Malaysia from June 11 to 14. During the visit, he met party leaders from both political spectrums, held discussions with delegates of overseas Chinese and Chinese Malaysians and visited Guangdong companies in Malaysia.