During his first term as president, when Donald J. Trump started a tariff war to pit the United States against China, Malaysia bet on both sides. The Southeast Asian nation aggressively courted American and Chinese companies with tax breaks and other goodies.

在特朗普的第一个总统任期里，他发动了一场关税战，令美国与中国陷入对抗状态，当时东南亚国家马来西亚两边下注，以税收减免和其他优惠措施大力吸引美中企业。

The strategy worked. Malaysia, a linchpin in China’s push for influence through its economic might, has brought in multibillion-dollar investments from companies including Texas Instruments and Lam Research of the United States and Alibaba and Geely of China.

这个策略奏效了。马来西亚是中国通过经济实力争取影响力的关键，它吸引了来自美国的德州仪器和泛林集团，以及中国的阿里巴巴和吉利等公司数十亿美元的投资。

With Mr. Trump headed back to the White House, and threatening to disrupt global trade again, Malaysia is hoping it can build on that approach with a plan to turn its southern tip into a hub for multinational companies looking for a safe haven.

随着特朗普即将重返白宫，并威胁再次扰乱全球贸易，马来西亚希望能够在这种做法的基础上制定计划，将该国南端打造成跨国公司寻找避风港的中心。

It involves an economic agreement with its neighbor Singapore, historically sometimes more of a competitor than a partner. Singaporean officials are embracing cooperation, too. Negotiators are wrapping up the details of a special Malaysian economic zone where companies will be given financial incentives to build factories.

这涉及与邻国新加坡的一项经济协议，从历史上看，新加坡有时更像它的竞争对手，而不是合作伙伴。新加坡官员也在寻求合作。谈判代表正在最后确定马来西亚经济特区的相关细节，在这里建厂的公司将获得财政激励。

The point is to give multinational companies based in Singapore, an island city-state on Malaysia’s southern border, the room and workers they need to expand their operations. Construction and investment on new facilities started this year and the prime ministers of Malaysia and Singapore will sign a final pact when they meet at an annual retreat on Dec. 8 and 9.

此举的是为了向总部设在新加坡的跨国公司提供扩大业务所需的空间和员工，新加坡是一个位于马来西亚南部边境的城市岛国。新设施的建设和投资于今年开始，马来西亚和新加坡的总理将在12月8日和9日举行的年度会议上签署最终协议。

The timing is opportune: American companies have put in place plans to cut their China ties in the days since Mr. Trump was re-elected, while Chinese companies have been reaching out to Malaysian officials.

这个时机正合适：在特朗普再次当选后的几天里，美国公司已经制定了削减与中国关系的计划，而中国公司则一直在与马来西亚官员接触。

马来西亚总理安瓦尔·易卜拉欣上个月在老挝万象。

Some investors still worry about doing business in Malaysia, where a corruption scandal brought the government down and cost one Wall Street bank, Goldman Sachs, $3.9 billion to settle charges for its role in the saga. Political stability is another concern: Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is the country’s fifth leader in six years.

一些投资者仍然担心在马来西亚做生意，那里的腐败丑闻曾导致政府垮台，华尔街银行高盛因在丑闻中被指控扮演的角色而支付了39亿美元。政治稳定是另一个令人担忧的问题：总理安瓦尔·易卜拉欣是该国六年来的第五位领导人。

But a steady stream of investment from Chinese and American companies has made Malaysia one of the fastest-growing hubs for data centers, the hulking buildings that power artificial intelligence systems. And the country is one of the biggest exporters of semiconductors, the tiny chips packed into everything including cars, computers and ultrasound machines.

但是，来自中国和美国公司的源源不断的投资使马来西亚成为增长最快的数据中心枢纽之一，这些庞大楼群为人工智能系统提供动力。马来西亚还是最大的半导体出口国之一，这种微小的芯片装在汽车、电脑和超声波仪等所有产品里。

With President-elect Trump threatening tariffs of 60 percent on Chinese goods, the new special economic zone could offer another alternative for global companies as they start to cut their China production and look for safer shores.

随着候任总统特朗普威胁要对中国商品加征60%的关税，这个新的经济特区可能会为那些开始削减在中国的生产、寻找更安全国家的全球公司提供了另一种选择。

It is part of a broader effort to attract investment from China and the United States, two of Malaysia’s top trading partners, while also benefiting from the trade war between the two that has disrupted global supply chains.

这是马来西亚更广泛努力的一部分，目的是吸引中国和美国这两个马来西亚最大贸易伙伴的投资，同时从中美之间扰乱全球供应链的贸易战中受益。

“If there is more of a shift toward what we call protectionism, that is going to give more room for neutral countries like Malaysia and Singapore to make full use of our natural advantage,” said Lee Ting Han, a Malaysian official in the state of Johor, where the special economic zone is being developed.

“如果会出现更多向我们所称的保护主义的转变，就会给马来西亚和新加坡等中立国家更多空间，充分利用我们的天然优势，”马来西亚柔佛州官员李廷汉（音）说。这个经济特区位于柔佛州。

马来西亚吉隆坡首个谷歌数据中心奠基仪式上的谷歌展台。

If there was any lesson to be learned from Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Lee said, it was that he will make good on his promise to increase tariffs on China after he takes office in January. Chinese companies looking for other locations for factories have already expressed concern that they could face U.S. tariffs if they move from China and start exporting from Malaysia, he said.

李廷汉说，如果要从特朗普的第一个任期中吸取什么经验，那就是他将在明年1月上任后兑现提高对华关税的承诺。他说，正在寻找其他建厂地点的中国公司已经表示担心，如果他们离开中国，开始从马来西亚出口，仍会面临美国的关税。

Mr. Lee tells the companies, he said, that their risks of avoiding U.S. tariffs will be mitigated if they qualify under the free trade agreements that Malaysia is a part of.

李廷汉告诉这些公司，如果它们符合马来西亚参与的自由贸易协定的条件，它们规避美国关税的风险将会降低。

But when it comes to Mr. Trump’s promise of a universal tariffs of as much as 20 percent on all foreign products, that is a problem that Malaysia may not be able to attenuate.

但是特朗普还承诺对所有外国商品征收高达20%的普遍关税，马来西亚可能无法缓解这个问题。

Malaysia has so far secured billions of dollars from American companies, including Nvidia, Microsoft and Google, to build in the economic zone. It has also wooed Chinese companies like ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok.

到目前为止，马来西亚已经从英伟达、微软和谷歌等美国公司那里获得了数十亿美元的投资，用于在该经济区的建设。它还吸引了TikTok的中国所有者字节跳动等中国公司。

Officials have promised the Malaysian public that the deal will bring more than 100,000 jobs. Singapore’s minister of state for trade and industry, Alvin Tan, told Parliament in October that the special economic zone “allows both sides to build on each other’s complementary strengths to better compete for global investments together.”

官员们向马来西亚公众承诺，该协议将带来超过10万个就业岗位。新加坡贸工部政务部长陈圣辉去年10月对国会表示，该经济特区“允许双方利用彼此的互补优势，更好地共同竞争全球投资”。

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, more and more global companies have moved their Asian headquarters to Singapore, driving up the cost of everything from food to rent. Many of them want to expand but cannot afford to within Singapore. Malaysia’s proximity, cheap land and resources, and weaker currency make it attractive.

自新冠疫情以来，越来越多的全球公司将亚洲总部迁至新加坡，导致从食品到租金等所有成本都出现了上升。其中许多公司想在新加坡扩大规模，但又负担不起。马来西亚距离新加坡很近，土地和资源便宜，货币处于弱势，这些都使其具有吸引力。

For now, most of the investments in the special economic zone have been in data centers, which do not tend to employ many people and require huge amounts of electricity and water for cooling.

目前，该经济特区的大部分投资都集中在数据中心，这些数据中心往往不会雇用很多人，而且需要大量的电力和冷却用水。

One day in September at the construction site for Bridge Data Centers, South Asian workers in vests and hard hats were being ferried by pickup trucks to work from their corrugated tin dorms. Their employer was China State Construction Engineering, a Chinese state-owned company. ByteDance will be the facility’s anchor tenant.

9月的一天，在桥梁数据中心的建筑工地，穿着背心、戴着安全帽的南亚工人坐着皮卡车，从他们用波纹铁皮盖成的宿舍前往工作地点。他们的雇主是中国国有企业中国建筑集团。字节跳动将是该设施的主要租户。

英伟达在柔佛州建设的数据中心附近的建筑工人。

A 15-minute drive away, another dusty construction site looked out of place surrounded by palm trees. It’s the location of a large Nvidia data center that is part of a $4.3 billion partnership with YTL Power International, an energy subsidiary of one of Malaysia’s biggest conglomerates. Workers driving heavy trucks deep into a palm plantation used a different road — sturdier so it could bear the weight.

15分钟车程之外，另一个尘土飞扬的建筑工地被棕榈树环绕，显得格格不入。这里是英伟达一个大型数据中心的所在地，该数据中心是英伟达与杨忠礼电力公司建立的43亿美元合作项目的一部分，杨忠礼电力公司是马来西亚最大企业集团之一的能源子公司。工人们驾驶重型卡车深入棕榈种植园，使用的是另一条更坚固、更能承重的道路。

Many of the targets for the special economic zone are focused on improving the flow of people on the border between Singapore and Johor, so that companies and workers in Singapore have a cheaper option to live and operate.

经济特区的许多目标都集中在改善新加坡和柔佛州边境的人员流动上，以便新加坡的公司和工人在生活和经营方面拥有更实惠的选择。

Each day, hundreds of thousands of workers on motorbikes cram side by side for hours to cross the border from Malaysia to Singapore. It is one of the world’s busiest crossings. The new special economic zone will make it easier, with QR codes replacing passports. A $2 billion high-speed rail link is scheduled to start running in 2027.

每天，上万工人骑着摩托车拥挤地并排行驶几个小时，从马来西亚穿越边境前往新加坡。这里是世界上最繁忙的过境点之一。新的经济特区将用二维码取代护照，过境会变得更容易。一条耗资20亿美元的高速铁路计划于2027年开始运行。

Malaysia intends to expand the trade area to include investments into other sectors like manufacturing, health care and logistics. Money that has come in is already helping to lift the economy in the short term, said Euben Paracuelles, chief ASEAN economist at Nomura, the Japanese bank. Pledges made by American tech companies over the past year alone account for 5.5 percent of Malaysia’s gross domestic product, by his calculation.

马来西亚打算扩大贸易领域，包括对制造业、医疗保健和物流等其他部门的投资。日本银行野村证券首席东盟经济学家尤本·帕拉奎莱斯表示，流入的资金已经在短期内帮助提振了经济。据他计算，仅过去一年，美国科技公司做出的承诺就占马来西亚国内生产总值的5.5%。

Global tariffs levied by a new Trump administration could make things more difficult for Malaysia. But some of Malaysia’s neighbors are more vulnerable to attacks by Mr. Trump because of the nature of the foreign investment they have taken in.

特朗普新政府征收的全球关税可能会让马来西亚的处境变得更艰难。但马来西亚的一些邻国更容易受到特朗普的攻击，因为它们接受的外国投资的性质不同。

国务卿布林肯与马来西亚总理安瓦尔·易卜拉欣上月在老挝万象举行的峰会上。

“You could argue countries like Vietnam are at risk of being slapped with China-type tariffs because they are quite clearly just channeling Chinese exports to the U.S.,” Mr. Paracuelles said.

“你可以说，像越南这样的国家有被征收中国式关税的风险，因为它们很明显只是把中国的出口产品输送到美国，”帕拉奎莱斯说。

Malaysia, instead, has attracted large investments for long-term projects from both the United States and China.

相反，马来西亚吸引了来自美国和中国的长期项目的大笔投资。

“In Malaysia’s case, because it is both U.S. and Chinese companies that are investing, it might make Trump more cautious,” Mr. Paracuelles said.

“在马来西亚，因为前来这里投资的既有中国公司，也有美国公司，这可能会让特朗普更加谨慎，”帕拉奎莱斯说。

Like their counterparts around the world, Malaysian officials are just beginning to digest the re-election of Mr. Trump. Some have started to float another idea: that Malaysia diversify beyond China and the United States.

和世界各地的官员一样，马来西亚官员刚刚开始消化特朗普再次当选的事实。一些人开始提出另一个想法：马来西亚应该在中国和美国之外实现多元化。

“The world may enter into a situation where there may be a U.S. supply chain and a China supply chain,” said Chin Tong Liew, Malaysia’s deputy minister of investment, trade and industry. “Then the rest is up for grabs. There will be a middle ground, and the more resilient our supply chain is the better.”

“世界可能会进入一个美国供应链和一个中国供应链并存的局面，”马来西亚投资、贸易和工业部副部长刘镇东（音）说。“剩下的就有待争夺了。将会有一个中间地带，我们的供应链越有弹性越好。”