Professor AK-47

SMART PARTNERSHIP AND THE SHAPING OF MALAYSIAN FOREIGN POLICY: IS IT GOING ANYWHERE?

Ever since Smart Partnership became the catchword for describing all forms of cooperation among the countries of the South including Malaysia in the late 1990s, Malaysian Foreign Policy has never been the same. For many its introduction marked the beginning of an active period in Malaysia’s foreign relations as Malaysian diplomacy tried to match the leadership’s commitment to make it worked. Like the distributed network it was made out to be, it laid down the basis of South-South cooperation.

Smart Partnership came to represent the whole challenge mounted by the South countries to meet the forces of globalization head-on. From Langkawi in 1995, Malaysia, then to South Africa in 1997 and later on to other countries in Africa and even to Europe and Asia,               

Malaysia’s participation and strong leadership at these International Dialogues, replicated the Langkawi experience. But to what extent has the idea really caught on and there are results to show that the cooperation has actually been concretized between the participating countries, have still remained unexplored and not least its impact on Malaysia’s foreign policy as a whole analysed.

Indeed so little has been said or discussed after the retirement from office of its main proponent, Malaysia’s fourth Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, in October, 2003 that one would have thought the idea came and gone with Dr. Mahathir Mohamad In fact it was Prime minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad who had broached the idea at a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in New Delhi, India in 1983. Of course things have changed so rapidly in the international system that had seen the best and the worst of globalization and witnessed the onset and retreat of empire, in the case of the United States’s unilateralist foreign policy, to make a reexamination of the relevance of smart partnership a useful exercise.

The idea that we wish to put forward is that smart partnership is relevant in the context of the changing role of the state like Malaysia in meeting the challenges of globalization and the new geopolitics.

A related question is whether smart partnership as an instrument of Malaysia’s foreign policy in the next fifty years will make any sense given the new international dynamics present today?

THINK ASIA

THINK ASIA is a novel idea to some. But for many it is something that is assumed to exist without any need to make others aware of it. Academics are the chief culprits. They refuse to see anything useful in belabouring the fact. It is already there. Why do we have to publicise it. Not quite.

Consider the needs of countries in Asia now that are undergoing various stages of transformation. For them there is certainly a lack of role-models to follow. Do we follow the flying geese model? , Or the bottom of the pyramid model? Or do we cite specific country case-studies. In any case Asia can boast of many such cases, from Japan to South Korea and Taiwan. Then there are the smaller cousins like Malaysia and Singapore. Each of these countries is unique in their very experience of transformation and mobility. These cannot be copied in its entirety of course but still aspects of their success-stories can be emulated.

The point was made that there is nothing new that we can fashion out anymore in the quest for knowledge. What remains is to ensure that the digital divide for instance in most countries in Asia is not widened. Given the technology that is advancing forward day by day even this will probably render itself obsolete in years to come. The new technology will replace the present impasse in the generation of ideas for a new Asian spirit and the next round of intellectual enterprise. It is in the hands of Asians to take the lead. By all accounts the so-called decline of the West is set to continue on its rightful path in every dimension of human progress. The centre of gravity has indeed shifted to Asia in countries like India and China and the mini-economies of the ASEAN countries for example. What will be the impact of this development on THINK ASIA?

Taking a futurist perspective on developments in Asia within the next decade or so, the trends seen in population growth, internet use, nuclear proliferation, medical and healthcare boom, corporate ownership and human capital needs, will necessitate a gravitational push towards THINK ASIA.