Only last year, Chinese president Xi Jinping said relations between Malaysia and China had never been better. Ten months before that, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong posted a picture on Facebook showing then Malaysian premier Najib Razak playfully offering him some durian, the giant, pungent fruit popular in east Asia.
But since a shock general election result in May, Malaysia has dramatically reset its foreign policy and revised its attitude to infrastructure projects.
After ousting his former protégé Mr Najib, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad suspended $23bn in Chinese-backed projects. He also pledged to scrap a high-speed rail link with Singapore and renegotiate their five-decades long water supply contract.