Find new words to describe nation’s foreign policy

the last 50 years, the evolution of Malaysia’s foreign policy has been described by an academic as ranging from alignment, neutrality to Islamism.

This was done to provide clarity in describing foreign policy stages from independence to today.

Now that we have a new government, other new words need to be found that benefit the foreign policy community. Two possibilities exist:

FIRST, we need to assume that in foreign policy decision-making, the prime minister has the final say; and,

SECOND, our search for the correct words can begin by reviewing major foreign policy decisions made by the country in the last six decades.

There was a time in the 1950s and 1960s when the country’s foreign policy was described as pro-West.

This period lasted from the end of WW2 in 1945 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.

Throughout this period, Malaysia had assumed a foreign policy focus of maintaining close relations with Commonwealth countries.

With these countries, Malaysia had engaged in common defence, security, economic and trading activities and technical cooperation.

Under the Commonwealth Five Powers Defence Arrangement, Malaysia has continued to have a defence cooperation with the four other members: the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Things changed with the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961 by a group of countries, led by the former Yugoslavia, that opted out of East and West blocs by forming a neutral bloc.

The East bloc was led by the then Soviet Union and the West bloc by the United States. Malaysia pulled away from the ideological stand it had taken before this.

Malaysia’s credentials as a neutral nation had been formalised in 1971, when the country declared, together with the other members of Asean, formed in 1967, that Southeast Asia would become a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality.

To gain international recognition as a strong player in world diplomacy, Malaysia took part in the activities of multilateral institutions: the G77 in 1964 and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in 1972.

Finally, in the 1980s and 1990s, with the advent of globalisation and liberalisation throughout the world, Malaysia rose to the challenge by championing the causes of development and a win-win cooperation among countries of the South.

Economic diplomacy grew in importance with the increase of foreign direct investment in Malaysia from technologyrich countries, including the US, Germany, Japan and South Korea.

To simplify the process of identifying the descriptive words for the country’s foreign policy from 1957 to today, I suggest we list the seven prime ministers and match them with descriptive words:

TUNKU Abdul Rahman — ideological;

TUN Abdul Razak Hussein — neutrality/regionalism/multilateralism;

TUN Hussein Onn — regionalism/multilateralism;

TUN Dr Mahathir Mohamad — globalisation;

TUN Abdullah Ahmad Badawi — liberalisation;

DATUK Seri Najib Razak — liberalisation/digitalisation; and,

TUN Dr Mahathir Mohamad — digitalisation/commerce