Malaysia and US dominance strategy

In my opinion, Pakistan Harapan was supported by The United States despite the fact that they don't enjoy the support of the Malay majority because they wanted to be able to have dominant influence over a PH government if it were elected. And, of course, having this influence over PH is more, plausible if they don't have majority support of the Malays because it's always easier to, make a party or a government more dependent upon your support if you don't have support from your own population because you need them in order to stay in power. And by needing them, you will be more likely to be obedient to them. So The US generally likes to support unpopular governments. Now they want to have this influence over the government because The US is currently trying to reconfigure the global system.

They are dismantling the post World War two world order which had been based largely on guaranteeing the safety of trade, global trade for particularly Europe, and they were ensuring that Europe would be prosperous, which is what we all know as globalization. But now The United States is pivoting to Asia. There's many reasons for this, but it's largely because quite simply Europe is dying. While Asia still has a robust birth rate, they are producing a growing number of workers and consumers. But the problem is that Asia is naturally and geographically within the sphere of influence of China.

And most of the countries that are in that sphere of Chinese influence historically have practiced non alignment. They're generally not blindly pro West nor blindly pro China. Just as in the Cold War period, they were not blindly pro The United States or blindly pro The USSR, but they practiced a pragmatic political approach. So this is a problem for America. Most of the countries in the region have long standing trade and economic ties with China, not to mention cultural ties with China and large ethnically Chinese populations among their citizenry.

But for The US, there are two countries that are absolutely crucial to their strategy, Malaysia and Indonesia, they absolutely want to dominate both and they want to coerce both into signing on to the American plan for containing China, even if that is completely not in the national interests of Malaysia or Indonesia, and it isn't. So I think that The United States supported ANWA, supported PH because they assumed that they would be able to have confidence in a PH government backing the American agenda in Southeast Asia. Now that doesn't mean that PH will do so. It doesn't mean that they are doing so. But I do think that that was the Americans' expectation, and there are a few things that you can watch out for to determine whether or not those expectations are being met, whether or not the PHBN government is in fact following the American agenda.

For example, look for the government and government and US funded media in Malaysia to obsess about racial and ethnic equality in Malaysia while simultaneously increasing tensions in those fears. Look for them, the government, and government funded and US funded media in Malaysia to marginalize and stigmatize the Malay majority and the parties that they support as being religious extremists. Look for the government to pursue financially unrealistic policies that will require loans in order to sustain them. Look for the government to grant The US increased military presence in Malaysia, whether that's in the form of additional army, air force, or naval bases, or just escalated increased frequency and size of joint naval military maneuvers in Malaysian territorial waters. Look for the government to either openly or tacitly endorse or collaborate with AUKUS, the Australian, UK, US security alliance in Asia Pacific, which is explicitly anti China.

And of course, look for policies that would restrict Chinese trade and investment in Malaysia. And look for there being numerous meetings between Malaysian and US officials where the subject matter of the meetings is vague and what's discussed is never really disclosed and the results of those meetings is never really disclosed in any kind of detail. Just we know that they met, but we don't know what they talked about and we don't know what they decided. If these types of things start happening, if you start noticing these things happening, then it would indicate to me that indeed the PHBN government is adhering to the American agenda. And, of course, all of the above, everything that I've mentioned now, all of that applies to the next government of Indonesia as well.

Now I dearly hope that this will not be the case, and I pray for the integrity of the PHBN government. I sincerely do. Because otherwise, not only would this put Malaysia if they're indeed following the American agenda, not only would this put Malaysia on the wrong side of the growing momentum across the global South for greater independence and sovereignty, but it would also mean that Malaysia is missing the momentous opportunity that is being presented to this region at this particular important pivotal moment in history. I've talked about this several times, particularly in the lead up to the last general election in Malaysia. If Malaysia makes the right decisions in the next five years and literally the next five years, that's how small this window opportunity is in my opinion.

If Malaysia makes the right decisions in the next five years, this country can become the economic hub of Southeast Asia. It can rise with the rest of the global South as a truly independent sovereign regional power politically, economically, and culturally. But this would mean preserving non alignment and indeed containing western, not Chinese influence. It would mean greater partnerships with the Muslim world and the broader global South. This would be a truly successful strategy for Malaysia.

But if they make the wrong decisions during this brief window of opportunity, I fear that Malaysia will sabotage its own future, and it would prolong the life of the most violent and the most prolific and the most anti Muslim warmonger of the twentieth and the twenty first century, The United States, which would otherwise recede from having dominant influence in Southeast Asia, a region in which by all rights, it should have no presence.