Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times by Barry Wain (fantasy novels to read .TXT) 📕

With Dr. Mahathir, though, it was essential to distinguish between rhetoric and reality. His anti-West diatribes, even when espousing principled positions, were grounded in domestic politics, aimed at enhancing his own nationalist standing and attempting to strengthen what political scientist Joseph Liow called "the Malaysian psyche and national identity".[9] That involved, Dr. Mahathir seemed to suggest, getting rid of a massive inferiority complex, a colonial legacy he appeared to share with the rest of the country, reflected in his references to the peoples of the West as "whites". While indulging in such "protest diplomacy", though, Dr. Mahathir rarely jeopardized Malaysia's core interests. He artfully operated on a double track, maintaining sound, functional relations with Western governments while sometimes feuding with their leaders, media and non-governmental organizations. Malaysia needed the West's money and know-how, and overwhelmingly pragmatic Dr. Mahathir — "for all his ranting", as Joseph Liow noted — never forgot it.[10]

While skewering First World hypocrisy, double standards and unprincipled inconsistency, Dr. Mahathir walked a fine line between being reasonable and ridiculous. His inflammatory language and extreme positions at times threatened to undermine his genuine grievances and useful suggestions. He was branded anti-Semitic for periodic, disparaging remarks about Jews. He made enemies of some governments that would have been useful allies, and too often he chose personal whim over strategic value. The overriding characteristic that defined foreign policy under Dr. Mahathir was aptly described as "diplomatic adventurism".[11]

Although Dr. Mahathir had a hand in almost every aspect of government policy, the extent of his contribution was not always apparent. With foreign policy, however, there was no doubt. It was all his. As one foreign ambassador in Kuala Lumpur put it, Dr. Mahathir kept Malaysia's relations with the world "in his own hands, defining, monitoring, controlling, directing and redirecting them". In another office in another building, the foreign minister of the day waited to hear "an idea or instruction from 'the boss', and only then" was he able to embark on a diplomatic venture.[12]

While Dr. Mahathir had the services of a specialist in Ghazali Shafie, his first foreign minister, the prime minister did not fully trust any of his Foreign Ministry professionals. Dr. Mahathir personally instructed his ambassadors to be more assertive, and even belligerent and rude, in pushing Malaysia's foreign policy goals.[13] Ghazali, who served as permanent secretary of the Foreign Ministry before entering politics and had extensive regional contacts and friends in Washington and London, complained privately about what amounted to a change in diplomatic culture.[14] Dr. Mahathir bypassed not only the Foreign Ministry but also his Cabinet in launching some of his most spectacular foreign initiatives.

Before Dr. Mahathir took over, little was known of his views on foreign affairs and defence. As a backbencher, he had shown an aversion for militarism — indeed, pacifist tendencies.[15] He was among the nationalists who criticized Tunku Abdul Rahman for maintaining close economic and security ties with Britain after 1957. Dr. Mahathir accused the Tunku of having an "apron-string complex" that betrayed a lack of confidence in independent Malaysia.[16] He was on record describing the consultative Five Power Defence Arrangements — linking Britain, Australia and New Zealand to protect Singapore and Malaysia — as written on a "worthless scrap of paper", because they offered no protection against "the very real threat" of communist insurgency.[17] But on assuming the Malaysian leadership in strategically uncertain times — the Cold War and Sino-Soviet rivalry still gripped East Asia — Dr. Mahathir made himself defence minister and took a cautious line. He made no move to abandon the five-power pact — in fact, he later strengthened it — or to remove Australian and New Zealand forces from Malaysian soil. Dr. Mahathir also ordered the occupation of the first of several atolls and islets to stake Malaysia's claim to part of the hotly disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

Six years after the American defeat in Vietnam, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was cooperating with China and the United States in trying to force Vietnamese troops to withdraw from Cambodia. Dr. Mahathir, however, looked askance at China, which had attacked Vietnam in retaliation, merely to teach Hanoi "a lesson". Beijing was known to be helping Malaysian Chinese visit China clandestinely in breach of Malaysian law. Beijing was also giving moral support to the sputtering, predominantly-Chinese communist rebellion in Malaysia, despite Kuala Lumpur's formal recognition years earlier of the People's Republic as the sole government of China. Dr. Mahathir declared the Chinese not only a threat to Southeast Asia, but a greater danger than Vietnam.[18]

His was not only a minority view, but was also expressed without the customary consultation with ASEAN. With Foreign Minister Ghazali scrambling to explain to his startled regional counterparts the new prime minister's comments, the episode was a sharp reminder that as leader Dr. Mahathir would sometimes play the diplomatic game by his own rules. Two years earlier, at the height of the "boat people" exodus from Vietnam, he had shocked the international community by declaring that Malaysia would arm itself with the power to "shoot on sight" refugees attempting to land on its shores. Although Dr. Mahathir claimed privately that he had been "misunderstood", he declined to retract or clarify his outburst, saying it had served a purpose by drawing attention to the severity of the refugee problem.[19]

Malaysia announced a fresh set of foreign-policy priorities that were supposed to reflect, in order of importance, Dr. Mahathir's global view: ASEAN, then a five-member group that was struggling to represent a Southeast Asian region split ideologically after recent communist revolutions in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos; the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an inter-governmental outfit seeking, fairly unsuccessfully, to promote and protect Muslim interests; the Non-Aligned Movement, a collection of developing countries trying to survive in a bipolar universe; and the downgraded Commonwealth of Nations, usually known as the Commonwealth, a club of mostly