Malaysia is finding itself more and more in international news headlines. No one needs to tell ordinary Malaysians how their daily lives are filled to overflowing with myriad concerns and challenges. The nation’s political leadership is challenged as lively debate goes on. Malaysians unite in the face of adversity and national tragedy as well as in national sporting triumph. With increased international competition and a global consciousness in its people, finite oil and gas and other rapidly-depleting natural resources, and a promise of greater national unity that many feel has failed, there is no room for political and economic complacency. The country’s talented and hardworking people want their economy and their fellow citizens to succeed. But they struggle daily in circumstances they consider unfair and unjust. This is a nation that sees ethnic, religious and urban-rural fracture. It sees heated parliamentary debate that tests the noble ideals of democracy and at the same time, witnesses the manipulation of the ugliest of populist instincts and allegations of high-level corruption and wrongdoing. Malaysia is a full-service, one-stop shop, middle-income level developmental experience. It is appropriate then that the eyes of the global community are transfixed on what happens here. Malaysia sets an example — good or bad — on how the rest of humanity will need to deal with the great challenges of the coming century. The rest of the world sees hope in Malaysia, not because life and progress here have been easy, but the opposite — how Malaysia faces its challenges. Today, numerous countries face the middle-income trap, a slowdown in economic progress before a nation reaches maximum potential. What makes Malaysia believe it is successfully escaping the middle-income trap? Today, countries around the world confront the racial and social tensions caused by sharp income inequality. What in the nation’s political complexion allowed it four decades ago to roll out its national dream, a New Economic Policy that would eradicate poverty regardless of race and eliminate the identification of economic function with ethnicity? If it has lost its way in that struggle, how have its leaders and its people together fought back to keep alive that national dream? How has the country continued to succeed after the 2008 global financial crisis, with global financial systems in disarray? In this time, Malaysia has kept secure its credit systems, ranked first in the world in 2014 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business survey. It simultaneously maintained a No 6 ranking for well-developed and secure financial markets and a No 8 ranking for low burden of government regulation in the 2014 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index. How did Malaysia do this? But in 2013, Transparency International ranked Malaysia worst among 30 countries surveyed for bribery. In the same year, the Asia-Pacific Fraud Survey Report Series ranked Malaysia worst in the region for corruption and bribery (alongside China, Indonesia and Vietnam). How then will Malaysia’s leadership deal with this challenge? So, to repeat, why is Malaysia the focus of so much international attention? Because it has to tackle problems that are extreme compared with those that others have to deal with. The example Malaysia sets is key, not only for its internal political dynamics but also for its external relations. Emerging economies in general, and the East in particular, realise they can no longer run unthinkingly on Western models of propriety, policy and governance. Even the West today does not run on these models. The world has grown economically and financially unstable because its historical global hegemon has gone missing in action. The US is no longer the fount of legitimacy; it is no longer the benevolent builder of inclusive international systems. The US has failed on the world stage, partly because of the rise of the East and its domestic political paralysis. But this vacuum in world leadership has not met a useful replacement. Instead, in this uncoordinated and leaderless world, political leaders focus ever more on short-term national interests, ignoring how their actions will inadvertently destabilise the global economy. With Malaysia as an important hub, the Asean region today faces these same challenges of cooperation and leadership. Asean seeks ever greater consolidation towards an economic community by 2015. Its concerns may be regional rather than global, but the problems are identical to those faced by a world economy that is uncoordinated and leaderless. The danger is the benefits of regional economic integration and cooperation may be sacrificed on the altar of national expediency as member states attempt to engage with domestic populations, showing ever greater political clout, ever more visible political dissatisfaction and ever greater sensitivity to the need for the benefits of economic growth to be distributed equitably. How has Malaysia dealt with these tensions internally and how has it remained hopeful about successful development towards a First World country? How is the country navigating regional relations across groups unified neither by political vision nor ethnic affinity? Today, Malaysia sits in a cauldron of profound, history-changing domestic dynamics. It is at the hub of critical regionalisation while the world economy is shifting dramatically. The world needs new political and economic models of success and leadership, not from those whose lives have been easy but from those whose lives have been hard. Malaysia needs to step up to that challenge. Its success will be good for its people and the world.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 08:18:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015