We need to “resurrect” the notion of Asia. ASEAN Centrality is great, and as long as ASEAN gets its acts together, it is a great power house. But Asia the label is something that we shouldn’t lose either.
As a society, we lack confidence in our own identity therefore we see the Other as threat. Some Chinese fear that the Malay officialdom would attempt to eliminate their cultural identity. Some Malays think that the Chinese are scheming to dominate the Malays. There are politicians and media that thrive on such fear and suspicion.
The change of government in May 2018 provides a rare opportunity for Malaysia to revisit some old assumptions and make new ones to move forward. One of the earliest major decisions that will have huge long-term impact by Defence Minister Mat Sabu was to commit the new government to present a Defence White Paper to chart the future.
For a generation or even two since the ascendance of neoliberalism in the 1980s, the world has very much been conditioned to think that weak states with no regulation, low taxes, free movement of money, the financialisation of housing property, and cheap labour, are good…
We need to realise that the military is the last resort, not the first responders. A military man in uniform is of course a very impressive persona and this certainly has a deterrence effect on all sorts of criminals or in any disaster relief effort.
How do we arrange and re-arrange the institutions of our three-tier government – federal, state and local governments – will remain an important subject for Malaysia for the years to come with huge implications. We have to first ask ourselves, why do we want to…
We should therefore think of building decent public and private housing in the inner city for young people to rent. Seriously, not everyone needs to own a house. But everyone does need shelter.
To get the policy mix right at all time, just as Malaysia needs to study China more, China needs to study Southeast Asians more too.
To have a strong and credible government, it is important that the parties in the ruling coalition are stable, disciplined and purposeful. It is with this objective in mind that I would like to discuss some of the difficulties and challenges faced by DAP in…
Speech by Deputy Defence Minister, Liew Chin Tong at The Defence White Paper Workshop on 8th March 2019 This is the first in a series of several workshops to be conducted by MIDAS – the Malaysian Institute of Defence and Security, and the Policy Division…