Foreign Policy Formulation in Malaysia

Abstract

Since independence (1957) the formulation of Malaysian foreign policy has been the virtual prerogative of a small stable elite comprising four or five men. Largely impervious to domestic political pressure, the values and perceptions of this group exercised an often decisive impact upon policy. The result was a decision-making process characterized by informal conversations and personal, as opposed to institutional, relationships.' Until 1970, the most important member of the elite was the Prime Minister (and concurrently Foreign Minister), Tunku Abdul Rahman. The Tunku2, as he was popularly known, was representative of the class of Western-educated, aristocratic Malays who have wielded the preponderant power in the Federation Government. Son of a Malay sultan and member of the British bar, the Tunku moved easily between two cultures. He possessed a great capacity for inspiring affection and trust from widely divergent groups and individuals. An English gentlemen, he was also the quintessential Malay: friendly, generous, loyal, and instinctively emotional in his reactions to people and events. Politically a moderate and a pragmatist, uncomfortable with ideologies and doctrines, he was a modern conservative, open to reform but profoundly hostile to revolution. For Malaysia, radically split along ethnic lines and with only a rudimentary sense of nationhood, the Tunku was an important asset. More than any other man he was able to bridge the rifts in Malaysian society-the divisions of race and the divergence within the Malay community between Westernized