Opinion | Why Malaysia’s China policy is unlikely to change, for now, despite election shock

By all accounts, it shouldn’t have been possible. Years of gerrymandering, malapportionment, and even a desperate attempt to legislate “fake news” ¬ a euphemism for political speech opposing the incumbent – were supposed to leave last week’s Malaysian general election a sadly predictable affair. 

Even with the deck stacked in favour of Prime Minister Najib Razak and the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional, Malaysian voters delivered a political earthquake. Mahathir Mohamad, the nonagenarian fourth prime minister who ruled Malaysia for more than two decades and oversaw its emergence as a prosperous upper-middle income regional heavyweight in Southeast Asia, would return to serve as the country’s seventh prime minister. 

Mahathir led a confused opposition coalition united mostly by its distaste for Najib, who had been besieged by accusations of corruption stemming from the 1MDB scandal, and little else. Even as urban Malaysia voters – long frustrated by Barisan Nasional’s stranglehold on national politics – rejoiced in the results, the prospects for a smooth transition were unclear. 

But so far, all has gone according to plan. Mahathir has been sworn in, setting in motion what had been the opposition’s plan all along: the full pardon by King Muhammad V of Anwar Ibrahim, who had been imprisoned on drummed up sodomy charges.

The Malaysian election result has stirred anxiety in China, where observers fear that Mahathir – still spry at 92 – will follow through on his promise to review a series of pro-China moves Najib undertook during his term. This disquietude also is partly based on Mahathir’s record during his 22 years as the country’s leader through 2003. 

“We need to study all the things done by the previous government,” Mahathir said last Thursday, before he was sworn in. “China has a long experience of dealing with unequal treaties and China dealt with them by renegotiating.”