A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (95 page)

My critics often said that we moved too fast and I must admit that I was always in a hurry. I did not know how much time I had or how long I would be heading the Government, as there had already been several attempts to oust me. Besides, I might die suddenly. I had survived my first heart attack and I thought I might not survive the next. Fearing that, I had to do everything possible to develop the country and take it further towards the goal of Vision 2020 before I left office.

Others have remarked how tough it was to keep up with me during our overseas trade visits. I always had a very busy schedule every day, causing a few delegation members to drop out and miss some meetings. I did not care about sightseeing. I just wanted to meet the right government officials and business people to discuss bilateral relations and trade. I consider sitting down and doing nothing a waste of the time allocated to us in life. I have always hoped to lead by example, and in this too I believe I had some success. Malays emerged in increasing numbers during my time to master business. By learning to work diligently and study hard, more Malay professionals were produced during my time than ever before, and this without diminishing non-Malay aspirations and opportunities. Non-Malays also admit that they did well under my policies because I pushed them hard. On that basis, the development of the country proceeded at a fast pace.

The early 1990s were also a time of change for global trade. People talked about trade liberalisation at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
[1]
 meetings but no agreement was achieved. The rich countries wanted access to the markets and resources of the poor countries, but they themselves were fiercely protective of their economies, particularly their agriculture. People ridiculed GATT saying the letters stood for General Agreement to Talk and Talk, where those with an unfair advantage and something to lose could delay unwelcome change with endless debate.
 

Trade negotiations are a strange part of international diplomacy. The objective seems not to be to make things happen but to ensure that nothing happens. GATT—and its successor since then, the World Trade Organization (WTO)
[2]
—have got nowhere mainly because of resistance from the rich countries. They talk glibly of change but want none that will affect their own interests. While they are happy to talk of the level-playing field that free market globalisation presumes and requires, they themselves will not accept the same logic when the issue is the application of fair, universal trade rules.
 

At these talks, the poorer countries were usually at a disadvantage as they could send only small delegations. Countries like the United States would send 200 delegates made up of experts in every field. Frequently, the poor countries would be unrepresented in the small working committee meetings, yet the powerful countries would insist that committee decisions be accepted by the general body. This meant that entire countries and populations would be bound by decisions in which they had no part in making. Just as the rich countries spoke readily of free trade principles when it suited them, they did the same with democracy. They were ever ready to impose their own notions of democracy upon the internal affairs of sovereign nations, which they must know were none of their business. But they would not accept the principle of democracy in the various international bodies and trade organisations. The US itself was founded upon the call of “no taxation without representation”, that all systems of levying taxes and tariffs imposed upon people without their consent or even participation were illegal. It was a pity that its leaders could not now recognise the force of this same principle in international trade in the global era.

In the early 1990s, when the Malaysian delegation returned yet again from another round of fruitless GATT negotiations, I decided that enough was enough. The Europeans had their European Community (not yet a Union at that time)
[3]
 and the Americans had the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
[4]
 involving the United States, Canada and Mexico. I thought it was only right that East Asia should have its own grouping. So Malaysia proposed the formation of the East Asian Economic Group (EAEG). Such a body would enable Asia to be better represented when negotiating with Europe and America. Australia and
New Zealand were excluded because they always favoured the European viewpoint, so the EAEG would be made up of Japan, South Korea and China in the northeast (we excluded Taiwan to avoid problems with China) and the ASEAN countries in Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Burma had not yet joined ASEAN so there were only six of us—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei). It would be a good grouping, we thought, combining the strength of the northeast with the dynamism of the emerging countries of the southeast. Before any negotiations at the international level, our group could meet first to develop a common stand. We did not have a free trade organisation or an EU-like grouping in mind, simply an East Asian forum on international trade issues.
 

But the US would not allow us to have even that, and they had great leverage with Japan and South Korea. The then US Secretary of State James Baker was particularly blatant in his approach. He told the Japanese that when he saw me during his 1991 visit to Kuala Lumpur, I was wearing a 
sarung,
 a loose cloth that is a part of our traditional Malay costume. It seems he thought that it was a backward thing to wear, and that it implied that Malaysia was still primitive. He did not realise that when we met it was late on a Friday morning and I would be heading to the National Mosque for Friday prayers. Cultural sensitivity was apparently not his strong suit. He also made the point to the Koreans that Malaysia did not fight for Korea during the Korean War. This was ridiculous—how could we have fought for the Koreans when we were a British colony at the time? He told the Japanese businessmen and government that the EAEG was not acceptable and they were not to have anything to do with the proposal. Japan and Korea listened to their powerful ally and withheld their involvement.

The Americans then influenced a few ASEAN countries to go against the EAEG, especially Indonesia and Singapore. The name was changed from EAEG to EAEC—with the “C” standing for “caucus”, an informal grouping rather than a formal body. To me the difference did not greatly matter. The main thing was our intention to get together before the next WTO meeting or any other international economic negotiation. Our interests were not identical, of course; had they been the same, there would have been no need to develop a common negotiating position. Even so, there were enough shared interests and issues linking us all that we could work out, as we needed to do, a common stand at any international financial or trade meeting. There was no need to counter Baker’s campaign as Asians had every right to hold their own discussions, but many were afraid of the Americans or felt that they were in some way indebted to the US. Still, it was an idea that merited Asian support. It remained in the minds of all Asians even though they could not yet do anything to promote it. Even after Baker retired from government, he went to Japan and summoned Japanese businessmen to remind them not to have anything to do with the EAEC. Indonesia and Singapore put up all kinds of obstacles to forming the group. The EAEC was held in abeyance until Kim Dae-jung became President of South Korea and proposed that the three northeast Asian countries have dialogues with ASEAN. These dialogues came to be known as ASEAN + 3, but effectively, it was the East Asian Economic Group.

I was still very insistent that Australia and New Zealand should have no place in this, and they, especially Australia, were very angry. I told them they were not Asians, but Europeans with the culture of the Europeans. During the East Timor crisis,
[5]
 Prime Minister John Howard even wanted to be America’s Deputy Sheriff in Southeast Asia. Australia liked to be an appendage of the US and if that is what it wants to be, then so be it. It certainly is not East Asian or Asian. But Indonesia, Singapore and Japan wanted to include Australia and New Zealand. For as long as I was the Prime Minister, I remained opposed to the idea. Of course, after I stepped down, the other member countries brought them in and some even suggested that the US should be included. But there was already the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
[6]
 forum, which included the US. The EAEG is purely Asian—it does not mention “Pacific”.
 

The US, however, wants total control over the whole world. Nothing could be done anywhere without its dominating involvement. It fears China’s influence in Asia and believes that China must somehow be contained. A grouping which includes China and Japan would be too powerful for the Americans to handle so the US does its best to keep Sino-Japanese enmity alive. But this strategy will eventually fail. US hegemony cannot be maintained forever. Whether or not the US or Japan or the rest of the world like it, China will become the world’s biggest economic power and killing off the EAEG will not diminish China’s potential. It is far better that China should always be associated with the non-belligerent countries of Asia.

We were quite happy with the ASEAN + 3 arrangement, but Asians must remain alert to the possible manipulation of the group by the US through Australia and New Zealand. Asians should not forget that the ouster of Indonesian President Sukarno
[7]
 was the result of American machinations. When America became disenchanted with his successor Suharto, he too was ousted. Only those who pose no real or imaginary threat to the US can survive friendship with that country.
 

APEC was an Australian idea to counter the EAEC. East Asians refused to support it until Australia persuaded US President Bill Clinton to sponsor its formation. When he summoned East Asian leaders to Seattle, Washington, to initiate the formation of APEC, I refused to attend the meeting although many people asked me to go. I thought it improper for the Australians to use the President of the United States to force East Asian countries to promote an Australian initiative. The Japanese Ambassador to Malaysia, under instructions from his Government—which no doubt had been contacted by the US Government—was less than diplomatic in his language when he called at my office to ask me to attend.

I stood firm and refused. Paul Keating, then the Australian Prime Minister, was very upset. He saw the formation of APEC as a glorious Australian achievement. Awed by the power and wealth of the US, he could not imagine anybody refusing to do their bidding and he famously branded me a “recalcitrant”.

I really did not mind because I did not set much store by what he thought. I preferred simply to ignore his indiscretion. But Malaysians and the Malaysian Press, thinking that I was being insulted, condemned Keating for his bad manners. After that I had to show my displeasure as well, because as a politician, I could not disassociate myself from strongly-held public opinion.

The next year when President Suharto hosted the APEC meeting, I went because I felt it was a decision made by the group, not just by President Suharto. As APEC is a Pacific organisation, I insisted that Peru and Chile should be included. I wanted to persuade other Pacific countries like Colombia and Ecuador to be members as well. Russia has since been included, a move I had pushed for, as has Taiwan although it was not able to attend the 2001 APEC meeting in Shanghai. If APEC calls itself “Pacific” then it should really be an inclusive Pacific entity, but the more inclusive it becomes of Pacific nations, the less an Asian grouping it is and the less plausible its claim to any legitimacy as one.

The “recalcitrant” episode was not the end of our adventures with APEC. When Malaysia hosted the APEC summit in 1998, President Clinton found some excuse not to attend and sent his Vice President Al Gore instead. In one of the most ill-mannered speeches ever delivered by a leader of a sophisticated, modern nation, Gore urged Malaysians to overthrow their government right in front of me. After finishing his speech he left the formal dinner that he had agreed to attend. There was an explosion of anger in Malaysia at this boorish behaviour of an official guest to his host. ISIS chairman Tan Sri Noordin Sopiee took out a full-page advertisement in the 
New Straits Times
 blasting Gore for his rudeness.

I chose to continue leading trade delegations to numerous countries. Our trade with the US and Europe made up more than 40 per cent of our total world trade and while I did not want to reduce its absolute volume, I wanted to lower its relative share in our overall trade. Among the countries which I thought would prove a big trading partner for Malaysia was China. I initially believed that China would not pose a threat to our ability to attract investment as it lacked the necessary legal and administrative framework as well as the required infrastructure. The Chinese were also still suspicious of the Europeans and the Japanese, and the Communist Party controlled all business enterprises while all Chinese companies were state-owned. But I was wrong. China, with its potentially huge domestic market, quickly made itself attractive to investors. Its per capita income may be far below that of Malaysia, but the GDP of 1.3 billion people must be very big. Taiwan was the first to invest in China to exploit the cheap labour there, and Japan, Europe, and the US followed. Before long China’s industries grew, exports rapidly increased and they repeatedly achieved double-digit growth. China quickly became the factory of the world, producing for both foreign investors and their own entrepreneurs and exporting almost everything. Eventually, I believe its costs, like Japan’s, will rise. But in China’s case, because of its huge labour force, that will take a longer time. Come what may, the purchasing power of the Chinese people will grow and they will need many things from the rest of the world. Malaysia stands to benefit one way or another from its huge market.