The Future of Democracy in Asia

Adam Ward

Well, good morning everybody. My name is Adam Ward. I am Deputy Director of the Institute and I’d like to welcome Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, to Chatham House. The Prime Minister is en-route home from New York, where he, amongst other things, addressed the UN General Assembly and so, we’re very pleased that he’s made time to address us today.

By any reckoning, it’s a remarkable political development when the ruling coalition of a country is defeated at the ballot box after 61 years of continuous rule, covering in fact the entire period of the country’s independence. That is what happened in May of this year in Malaysia to the coalition led by UMNO, the United Malay National Organisation. But it’s even more remarkable when we consider that the charge against the ruling coalition was led by someone in Dr Mahathir, who served five terms as its Prime Minister from 1981-2003. Who felt it necessary to turn against his former protégée as amid allegation of widespread corruption, who has achieved this extraordinary political comeback, at the age of 93, if I may say so, and who has indicated that he, in turn and in time, will hand over the reins of office to Anwar Ibrahim, a former fierce political rival.

Prime Minister Mahathir’s first period in office was marked at home by strong economic development, but also, by what your opponents charged was a very tight political grip. Abroad, it’s fair to say that you were often a critic of the West, but now as leader of the Pakatan Harapan coalition, that your Government state of priorities include anticorruption measures, the restoration of public finances, inclusive growth strategies, and the overhaul of what I think you regard as a politicised Civil Service. You’ve underlined a policy of neutrality and non-alignment in foreign affairs. Your notable early measures have included the suspension or the cancellation of large infrastructure projects linked to China’s Belt and Road Initiative on grounds of financial viability, but also, amid warnings you’ve repeated about the risks of, or the different types of economic forms of colonialization.

At both at home and abroad your administration has pledged a commitment to improving human rights, and the Prime Minister’s subject today is the future of democracy in Asia. We look forward to hearing about Malaysia’s experiences and its challenges and what the fate of democracy in the region implies for the region’s international relations. This meeting is on the record. It’s being livestreamed. Prime Minister, we look forward to your remarks and the discussion that will follow them. Welcome again. Thank you [applause].

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak to the audience here. Malaysia has gone through a very curious transition. I was leader for 22 years of the Government Party, which rule Malaysia for 61 years. Now am I leading the opposition and the opposition has now become the Government, so I am not changing my thoughts. I suppose I still have the same whole ideas about authoritarian rule. Of which I am accused of being a Dictator during my time, but I beg to differ. I was not a Dictator, but that doesn’t make anybody change their mind. That whenever they mention my name, they always describe me as a Dictator and today, a Dictator is what we talk about the most. I don’t know whether I have qualified or not, but I will try.

In the first place, of course, democracy is not an Asian invention, it came from the West. It began, I suppose, from Greece, but now, the whole world has been told that you have to become democratic or else. As regime change, taking place in many places, and as a result of trying to be democratic, they have met worse fate than when they were under authoritarian rule. So, does that mean the authoritarian rule is best or – well, of course, we’ll deny that because we think that the only system of Government that should be practised by all countries must be the democratic system, but the democracy is not something easy to handle. The basic rule, of course, is that the majority of the people have a right to choose a Government to govern their country, but even in a democracy there can be autocrats who rule rather tightly. As I have been accused of, but if you want to make a Government work, you have to have certain disciplines.

Asian minds are not accustomed to the idea that a country can be ruled by the people. We have always had Monarchs, with absolute power and we have survived, in a way, of course there were a lot of criticisms again the monarchies of rule, because they tend to be rather cruel to their own people, in order to sustain themselves. But now, Asians are told that they should have democracy and democracy means not having any Monarch or any Dictator. It is the people who will choose the leaders who will lead the country.

The assumption, of course, is that the majority of the people must know what is good for themselves. Unfortunately, they are distracted by other things, like money, for example. If they are given money, some of them would vote for whoever gives them money, whether he is a democrat or he is an authoritarian ruler? So, sometimes, or rather, quite often it happens that a democratically elected ruler can behave like a Dictator and that’s what happened to Malaysia for – since 2013, when the Prime Minister who has been ousted, took over.

He introduced into democracy a new slogan and that slogan is called ‘cash is King’. In other words, he’s saying that it is legitimate and proper to bribe, in order to do – to get anything done. But Prime Ministers are not paid very well. I think if you are in the private sector, doing business, you are better paid, but for a Prime Minster, who was running a whole country, the pay is very, very low. So, if you want to bribe and you don’t have money, you have to think of some ways to get money, and the previous Prime Minster decided that he would steal the money, because he hasn’t got enough money to give bribes, which would change the minds of people.

That shows that even if we elect a ruler, it doesn’t mean that he will behave himself. They are making an example and removing a ruler who is not fair, who is cruel and all that, but sometimes, the whole system can be converted to the Dictator’s ideas and they will carry out his instruction, because they know that they will be very well paid for that. So, even in a democracy they can be Dictators and we find that when working in a democratic Government, too many people have got ideas, which they think should be carried out by the Government and because they have different ideas from the Government, we have opposition parties.

Opposition parties normally can only criticise the Government, but it is seldom that they can overthrow the Government or bring the Government down, unless, of course, that it is a two-party system, but two-parties is not very democratic. It means that some people will have to forget about their own ideas, their own ideals in order to a part of the other party, the opposition. Only if there is a united opposition can democracy, can there be election to form the Government. But it is not easy to have just two parties, because many people will believe that they are the right people to form the Government and so, when you see regime change taking place in the Arab countries, they – every one of those people who campaign, who demonstrated, in order to overthrow the authoritarian Government, every one of them felt that they were the ones who should be running the Government. But they are not united. They come from various parties and the only reason why they think the Government should be brought down is because they think they would be able to rule after the Government is overthrown. But there are so many people who wants to be the Government and of course, immediately after overthrow the authoritarian ruler there will be a quarrel among the people who overthrew him, because they belong to different parties with different ideas.

The end result may be civil war or at least tension and instability in the country, and we see, in some countries, they lost their ability to run the country. The will become failed nations because they kept on quarrelling with each other and not getting any benefit at all from democracy. So, we can think of democracy as if it is the ‘one size shoes which fits all’ because each country, each people have their own cultures and some of their cultures are so strong that it is difficult for them to change from having a Dictator or an absolute Monarch and replacing him with someone you elect merely by making a tick on a piece of paper. This is not common with them and therefore, this idea doesn’t – it cannot be easily practised in many, many countries in Asia and in the Middle East.

So, we need to accept that democracy is not a perfect system. It has it faults, but to make it work, the mindset and the very system of the people must be capable of accepting rule by a person who’s elected every five years. Sometimes, of course, it doesn’t last five years, or sometimes, he may go onto rule the country for five terms, but all these things are still quite democratic. But some will fail because of the quarrels that take place all the time with the people sniping at the Government and the Government spending all the time and money in order to govern the country. He will not be able to govern the country because he has to face a lot of disruption coming from the very people who elected him.

So, in Asia today, we find not too many democracies. India is supposed to be the biggest democracy, and – but the others are quite totalitarian, such as the kingdoms – the countries of Central Asia. In the East, of course, although leaders may be elected, their ability to rule is not so good because of the constant sniping at the ruler, whoever he may be. So, the future of democracy in Asia, I think will be something that will be – will not be achieved overnight, as happens with some of the Middle Eastern countries. They change overnight and today we see more problems than there was before they had democracy. You see civil war. You see a lot of fighting and you see a lot of disruptions of the environment and they are unable to rule well, or to get others to come and invest in their country. So, I hope that people will understand that it takes time for people to become democratic. The very system must be suitable for democracy before democracy itself can be used as a method of ruling a country. Thank you very much [applause].

Adam Ward

Thank you very much for that introduction to our conversation. Perhaps we should turn initially, to the subject of democracy in Malaysia. I think Malaysia, like many countries, has suffered a history of political polarisation, based on racial, as well as confessional religious grounds. Today, I suppose one could say that polarisation is expressed, on the one hand by UMNO as party of Malay interests and on the other, by PAS, as the party of Islamist opinion. How do you see the fate of those two political parties and how well do you think you’re likely to make progress, in terms of dulling some of the polarisation of recent years?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, UMNO is democratic, although many people laugh at that claim. The thing about democracy is that you have to also take into consideration, the situation in your country. In Malaysia, we have three different races and 29 tribes living together, obviously, there will be conflicts between them because of race. But when the race is not only divided by race, it’s also divided wealth and the share of the wealth of the country, the tendency towards complaint becomes much greater.

In Malaysia, what really happens is that we accept people from China to settle in Malaysia and become citizens, so can the Indians become citizens in Malaysia. The people who migrate normally are very dynamic people. They are seeking a better place and they’re willing to undergo difficulties in the new place they have settled in, and what follows is that the indigenous people who could not cope with modern systems of economy, fail. They do not do as well as those from other countries who perform very well and therefore, there is a lot of very wide disparity between the rich and the poor and amplified of course by the race. That the rich are mostly are Chinese, whereas the poor are mostly indigenous people. Now if you allow the normal system to work, based on merit perhaps, you will find that the distance between the two races will be far greater and there will be envy, and take an example, on the part of the poorer people and that will destabilise the country. Even in a single ethnic country, the difference between rich and poor, if it is too wide, it will cause a lot of conflicts, tension, but here, not only is there the disparity is wide between rich and poor, but the rich belongs to one race and the poor belongs to another race.

It is important to reduce the imbalance in order to achieve a stable peaceful society, so that is why we are always, in Malaysia, accused of discriminating against the Chinese, but the Chinese are the richest people in our country, that is a matter of fact. But if you don’t correct that you don’t bring up the indigenous people to be at par or slightly less separated from the richer people, then you are inviting instability into the country. So, in our attempt to correct this imbalance, we have been accused of discriminating against the Chinese, and believe me, the Chinese are very rich in Malaysia. Although they are discriminated against, they are far better educated, they are doing much better than the indigenous people, simply because the Chinese are people are dynamic people, who have rebuild their poor country in just 30 years. Changed a poor country into a very rich country, that seems to be threatening the world because of its wealth. That is the Chinese race, they are very hardworking, very dynamic, but the indigenous people, in most countries, are less capable of competing and therefore, they are left behind. So, what we did was to have a formative action in which we help the poor community to try and catch up with the richer people, not absolutely, but maybe reduce the disparity between them to a tolerable extent. Thank you.

Adam Ward

Let me turn to the question of human rights, because in your address to the UN General Assembly, you indicated that it’s the intention of the Government to ratify all UN instruments on human rights, but in your speech, you also warned that this is going to take patience in view of the multiracial, multireligious character and the need for debate on this issues, which that gives rise to. And meanwhile, at home, I think some of your critics have been disappointed that some of the restrictive legislation of the prior administration on questions like sedition and so forth, has not been lifted as quickly as they would like. What can you tell us about progress on those two fronts?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, human rights is based on the culture, the value system of Western people. We don’t have – I mentioned just now that we were originally absolute monarchies, in which the people regard that as normal. But now they are asked to change, but no only change to have more freedom, but also, we have to determine some limit of freedom, nothing is absolute. If you have freedom and you want to do certain things that a community do not accept then of course, it creates a big problem for that community, so people should be sensitive to the value system of the community. You should not – actually, what is a value system in the European countries, it’s not the same value system in Malaysia, for example. We are a Muslim country, but 60% of the population of Muslim and they have their own values, which we cannot just brush aside simply because the rest of the world regards certain things which, in the past, they had condemned, but know they think it is part of human rights. So, our ratification or our exceeding to the ideas of about human rights coming out of the European community will not be the same. There will be certain restriction and we should be given that right to have our own value system and to stabilise our country. Thank you.

Adam Ward

When we were talking, before we were discussing the fact that you were never really expected to win the election, and because you never expected to win, you produced a very long manifesto of commitments that you now have to fulfil. That manifesto, having been intended principly as a critique of the Government rather than a policy programme per se. Not many members of your coalition have Government experience, you’re trying to overhaul a politicised Civil Service, as you see it, involving thousands of appointments across the country. Are you finding that the – because of those factors, the process of Government is being much more concentrated, in your own hands, in a very centralised way, or are you finding colleagues that you can begin to devolve some responsibilities to? And is there a question of bottlenecks, I guess I’m saying, in terms of the implementation of your programme?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, in the first place, with regard to the manifesto, we drew up the manifesto, thinking we would not be the Government and therefore, we want the Government to be a good Government. We need to say they have to do certain things, which are difficult for them to do, and now we became the Government and we had to – well, follow our own manifesto, which was meant actually, for the other party. That is very difficult, but nevertheless, we have tried to follow as much as possible, for example, the Public Accounts Committee used to be headed by the ruling party, and members of the ruling party, but now, the prescription in the manifesto is that the Chairman of the PAC, Public Accounts Committee, should be from the opposition. So, we have – we wouldn’t do anything except to ask the opposition, the previous Government to become Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, now we can achieve of course. But previously, there was a lot of cheating, because it was the ruling party which headed the PAC. Now with regard to whether I will become a Dictator again or not, because many of my colleagues, in the Cabinet, are not familiar with being in the Government, for 16 years they’ve been against the Government, now they are the Government, so they find the transition quite difficult to handle.

Of course, I have been with a Government for 22 years and I now I am back again, as a part of the Government. I will have to give some of my own ideas to them and also, to practice the kind of things that Government always do. All Governments must have authority. It is the ideals of authority that is bad. It’s not the being – having the authority or the power. The power, in itself, is good for developing the country, ruling the country well, but when you abuse the power, for example, there should be – the power should be distributed between three units, and first, the legislators, and then implementers, and then the judiciary.

In the past, there was no distinction, under the previous Government, so now we will go back to the same pattern of division of power and I think we, ourselves having prescribed it in our manifesto, we also must implement what we expected the opposition, the previous Government should do, should they win the election.

Adam Ward

Thank you, and one last question from me on foreign policy before we turn to the audience. You mentioned, as I said in my introduction, that Malaysia’s pursing a policy of non-alignment and neutrality, does that in effect mean though, a policy of balancing the competing demands of China, on the one hand, and the United States, on others? How do you see that progressing, as I mentioned as well, you’ve already taken a much more cautious approach towards the Belt and Road Initiative, which is a signature of foreign policy, as well as economic foreign policy of China? When I was in Washington last week, Pentagon officials, in their discussions with me, seemed very enthusiastic and hopeful of deepening defence ties with Malaysia, so how are you managing this, the hedging between the two?

Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, we don’t want to be involved in other people’s quarrels. We want to be friends with everyone and that was a way the previous Government, which I led, conducted its foreign policy. We don’t want to be involved in wars in siding with this group or that group, because all those things create problems for us, and we have to always respect the wishes of the group we belong to. But since we belong to no group, we are not for the East or the West, the North or the South, then we are free to be friends with everybody. We believe that foreign policies should be conducted, not through threats or war or sending the fleet to the country that we are having relations with. We should settle all conflicts between nations through negotiation, arbitration or through a court of law, but not through war, so we are not aligned with any country, in any grouping in the world. We are neutral and we want to be with friends with all people and we would not be enemies of anyone.

Adam Ward

Thank you. Right, we’ll now open it up to questions from the floor. If you would like to ask a question, indicate that in the usual way. When a microphone reaches you, and do wait for it to reach you, please then identify yourself by name and your affiliation as well. The first person to catch to my eye was a gentleman here in the front.

Dominic Dudley

Hi, Dominic Dudley, Member of Chatham House and a Freelance Journalist. I wanted to ask you about the 1MDB scandal and to what extent has that complicating or even damaging relations with some of the Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and as the investigation continues, are you going to be prepared to go after individuals in those countries who might be accused of corruption or other crimes? Thank you.

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, if they break our law, and they’re doing it in our country where we can reach them, of course we will apply the law to them. But sometimes these people run away to countries, which are friendly to us, but somehow or other, keep – allow these people to be protected by them and the best thing is to negotiate. We cannot go to war with those countries. They are very big countries, so we can tolerate quite a lot of, well, pressures from other countries, but including from our friends in the Middle East or in the East or in the West.

Adam Ward

Thank you, and lady here in the third row.

Karen Striker

Hi, and it’s Karen Striker from Reuters. I actually wanted to ask a follow-up question to that. Within Europe you are already co-operating with Switzerland and Luxenberg, I understand, are there any other European authorities that you are in talks with, regarding the 1MBD? MDB sorry, and the other question was, do you have an indication of how much money you expect to recuperate, in total, from these operations? Thank you.

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, there may be other countries, but we are following the money trail, the people want that, must be done when money moves. Well, our priority is to go for the cases where some evidence have already been gathered. For example, the American Department of Justice had investigated this money that was used to purchase property and produce a film in American. They have discovered that money that was used for these purpose, buying a house, mansions and all that came from 1MDB, from Malaysia. So they acted because they think this money laundering was done in America, under their law, but at the same time, of course, they cannot stop from saying that the money is not theirs. It belongs to Malaysia and it misuse, abuse by Malaysians, but it involves the American guarantee, it involves American bank and it involves American law. So they will take action on it, but we, when our term comes, we will take action because the money that was used, that was being laundered was our money, we have a right to that. Of course, we have to negotiate with the Americans, but with other countries, at the moment, we have some co-operation coming from Switzerland, from Luxemburg and on – as a matter of priority, we have to deal one-by-one. At the moment it is about the – well, it was about the abuse of the power by the Prime Minister.

Adam Ward

Okay. Like to turn to another portion of the room here, a gentleman there with his hand up. Yeah.

Adam Light

Good morning. Selamat Pagi. Thank you Prime Minster, it’s a real treat to hear you speaking this morning. My name’s Adam Light from the UK-ASEAN Business Council. If I may, the UK will be leaving Europe and after that will not have any formal relationship with ASEAN, what would be your suggestions and thoughts on the UK formal relationship with Asean and also, with regards to the CPTPP, how the UK’s expressed an interest in joining, that Malaysia is now reviewing, and your comments on that please, sir? Thank you.

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

And we have a forum called ASEAN Europe, an EU forum, which meets regularly and we discuss matters, mainly about trade, within the two areas, but now that Britain has come out of the European Union, we will talk with the UK alone, without having involvement of the other European countries. But we intend to carry on the relations of whether UK is in the Union or not, because to us, what is important is our ability to trade with these countries and our trade with Britain is one of the biggest in Malaysia, for every year in Malaysia.

Adam Ward

And yes, right on the edge there, and blue shirt.

Member

Dr Mahathir, I appreciate it greatly your remarks, and being married to a Malaysian for 30 years, I tend to be an observer of Malaysia and I think there’s certainly a sense of great deal of relief on your election. One of the concerns a lot of people have is that the self-dealing of the previous elite has gone down through the structures to the parastatal level and you mentioned accountability. What I wanted to ask you, are you going to bring about a reform of the structures and bring accountability back into the layers of Government?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Yes, we are going through a process, reforming many of the structures, many of the Government departments, as a – and to fulfil the promise that we made. We find that the power or the Prime Minister, for example, was too great. He is able to choose people to aid different Government departments and that will be removed from the Prime Minister’s department to Parliament. Parliament will determine the choice, or the promotion of Senior Officers. We will also reduce the terms of – for becoming Prime Minster to two terms only. So, a number of issues need to have the concern of the two-thirds majority because it involves the constitution. So, at this moment, we don’t have the two-thirds majority, but we will do so as soon as we can persuade others to give us support for a change. Recently, we wanted to repeal the anti-fake news law, but we couldn’t because the upper house, the Senate, it has the majority of the opposition there. We cannot get through, even for a simple majority. So, quite a number of changes, we want to issue, depends upon Parliament and although we have a majority in the lower house, we don’t have a majority in the upper house and that can result in our – the repeal of the laws becoming obstructed.

Adam Ward

Thank you, and yes, lady here in the second row. Just there in the second row.

Aisha Sadeka

Prime Minister, what a pleasure to listen to you. I’m Aisha Sadeka from SOAS. So the question, you were talking about values and social values in Malaysia, and how you have to be conscious and careful of those, but values are also in a flux, they change. In a lot of countries, Muslim countries, the Saudi influence, in the last couple of decades, have really changed values, so where do you put a dot? Where do you put that line and say, “These are values that we will be careful of” and “here are value which are outside” and sacrifice human rights on that?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, we will have to consult the experts in the region. As you know, in the petitions of the religion, happens all the time. One country may accept that in practice, another country will not be bothered about that practice. For example, some countries have their face covered. Not in Malaysia, we don’t do that, although some people try to do that, but it’s not a popular move and it’s not actually against the religion to leave your face – let your face be uncovered. In fact, that the Quran says that you should keep your face uncovered and your hands, but some countries interpret differently and so they make it compulsory for women to cover their face. We don’t have to follow that. We follow the teachings and the beliefs of our own country and some of these beliefs of course, may fall short of ideas coming out of the West. For example, you have nowadays, the institution of marriage and family, it’s no longer sanctified. We have lots of people just don’t even know who the father is, but of course nowadays, with DNA you might be able to find out, but normally, such of kind relationship is not tolerated in Malaysia.

Adam Ward

Thank you. The gentleman right up against the wall there, in the yellow jacket.

Euan Grant

Thank you very much, Prime Minster. Euan Grant, Institute of Statecraft. My question is, how do you see Malaysia’s future defence planning, in the light of a changing geostrategic situation and indeed, for a maritime nation, with states on the Peninsula and in Borneo, in – particularly in the maritime field? Where do you see the changing technologies and are you going to invite Australia back full-time to Butterworth? Thank you.

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

We don’t really believe in military alliances. We want to be independent and to have our own foreign policy. Tying yourself to a group of countries of military would mean that we get involved in their politics, in their relation with other countries, that we cannot do. We have the Five Power Defence Agreement in which five countries decide to work together, but that does not mean that we are committed to follow the policy of the five countries. We can have our own policy and certainly, I would not like to have a foreign country having a base in Malaysia. We want to be free of involvement in the politics of other countries.

Adam Ward

Thank you. Yes, the lady here in the second row. Just keep your hand up, so the microphone guy can – yeah, there we go.

Pavani Reddy

Prime Minster, good morning. I would like to ask a question about arbitration. You have mentioned, at least three times in response to your questions, that you would like to see the disputes to be resolved through arbitration, mediation, rather than going to the war. So what developments is Malaysia is intending to take, in comparison with Singapore, in order to develop arbitration? By the way, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Pavani Reddy. I’m a Solicitor from Zaiwalla & Company Solicitors.

Adam Ward

Are there particular issues with Singapore, that you want to draw attention to?

Pavani Reddy

Arbitration, what developments is Malaysia is intending to bring forward, in order to promote international arbitration to have the disputes determined through arbitration in Malaysia for international companies?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, we have certain claims over parts, over various issues involving Singapore. We have been trying to negotiate with them, not so very successfully, but we don’t intend to go to war with them. You see, they are more powerful than us. They may be small, but they’re powerful. I don’t see war as a means of settling conflicts, so we’ll continue negotiating, although there may be no result, rather sit down and talk and talk, rather than got war and kill people.

Adam Ward

Thank you. Yes, gentleman then, in the third row, with your hand up.

Spencer Shaker

Okay, Spencer Shaker, a lay Member of Chatham House and of course, a student at University College London. So, Prime Minister, you talked about changing values to adapt to democracy, but to what extent should Asian democracies adapt democracy to pre-existing values?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Pardon.

Adam Ward

How should Asian democracies adapt to pre-existing values in which their society maybe based?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, there are some values belonging to other groups of people, which are harmless perhaps, and also, good for the people in Malaysia. So, we will copy them. We will try and follow that as much as possible. For example, and once, when I was Prime Minister before, we had a policy call Look East, looking East, why do we look East? It’s not just about inviting foreign direct investment from Japan or Korea or China, it is about learning from those people, how they develop their country. They were poor once. Japan was at war and it was partially destroyed, but they recovered very quickly. We want to know how they recover and among the things that contribute to the recovery is the culture of the people. They are very hardworking people. They – well, relative to some people, they are much more honest, perhaps. I don’t want to comment too much on that, and the value system is what enables a person or a race or a country to be developed or not developed.

We see in the West many countries being developed, though the question is, why cannot we? We saw Japan, following the European footstep and they succeeded. We want to follow Japan and see how they did – how they achieve their progress and development and if there is anything that we can learn from them, we will copy. So, we are not taking about other values that will neither help us nor be good for our society.

Adam Ward

And gentleman here in the second row, right in the middle. Just – yeah, there we go.

Hamley Case

Good morning, Prime Minister. It’s a pleasure to be here and I was very interested in what you had to say about the use of threats and war.

Adam Ward

Please, could you just introduce yourself?

Hamley Case

Oh, I’m sorry. Hamley Case, Guyana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Non-resident Ambassador to a clutch of European countries. I was very interested in what you had to say about the use of threats and the use of war. Guyana has had a longstanding dispute with Venezuela, a country that’s claiming to two-thirds of ours and it’s a claim that goes back to 1899. The matter was recently referred, but with the instigation of the United Nations to the International Court of Justice. Venezuela is saying that they do not recognise the ICJS having any jurisdiction over Venezuelan matters. Now how do we manage a relationship, with a very close neighbour, who refuses to be involved in court matters?

Adam Ward

Are you suggesting that there’s a parallel close to Malaysia somewhere?

Hamley Case

Not at all.

Adam Ward

Or are you asking the Prime Minister to arbitrate your dispute?

Hamley Case

That would help, yes. Thank you.

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Before you can go to the World Court, both sides must agree to abide by the decision made by the World Court. We referred two cases to the World Court. One is a claim on two islands, which claim also by Indonesia, these are beautiful islands, and we both claim they are ours. But we couldn’t reach settlement through negotiation. We couldn’t reach settlement through arbitration, so we decided to go to the World Court and the World Court very wisely said that it belongs to us, Malaysia. But on the other hand, there was a claim on one piece of rock, about the size of this table in the South China sea, between Malaysia and Singapore. It is nearer Malaysia than Singapore, and we went to the World Court because we couldn’t settle in any other way, and the World Court unwisely decided they belonged to Singapore. So, sometimes we gain, sometimes we lose. You know, if you go to the courts, you are at the mercy of the Judge.

Adam Ward

There’s a gentleman right at the back, against the wall there, with your hand up, by the cameras.

Indica Beatrice

Good morning, Prime Minister. I’m Indica Beatrice, a Member of Chatham House, and my concern is especially China and India, they ignoring local politics in Sri Lanka because they’re locally, so we have issues, but now, all the political parties either going after China or they’re taking some instruction from India. So how we going to be concerned about our local issues, rather than we are a centre in international politics?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, we were in the opposition before when the Malaysian Government, the previous Malaysian Government borrowed huge sums of money from China. We thought that was unwise because we find difficulty to repay the loan, so the thing that we could do was to displace the Government. We went for an election and we won, so now we are trying to correct the wrong things done by the previous Government. It is our action entirely, but of course, it involves negotiating also, with China and even with Singapore, but the main thing is, we claim that this thing is not good for us and therefore, we want to revise it or delay it or do something about the kind of contract or treaty that we entered into. So, it is not a question of confronting China and making demands. We are not in the position to make demands. We have to accept that they are a powerful country.

Adam Ward

Thank you. Yes, the gentleman with his hand up there, and then we’ll come to you next.

Michael Binion

And Michael Binion from The Times newspaper. Prime Minster, could you say how you’re going to rebuild your relationship with Anwar Ibrahim, particularly after he served in prison under your Prime Ministership?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Yeah, he was in prison by the court, not by me. I didn’t have the power to imprison him. I could detain him, but I prefer going to the courts and it took nine months for the court to decide, and after I sat down, he was released and then another Government decided to take him to court, for the same crime, you want to call it a crime, and he went to jail, under another Government, not by me, and now, I find that if Najib, the previous Prime Minister, is to be overthrown, the only way is for a coalition of the opposition parties. Within that coalition, we cannot have fights or differences. We though that overthrowing Najib was much more important than past misdeeds or wrong deeds by anybody. So, at the moment, I am working well with Anwar. He’s contesting. Today, he’s contesting to become a Member of Parliament and, in two years’ time or three years’ time or whatever, when I am due to retire, I will give the Premiership to him, that is no problem. I have no problem with that, no.

Adam Ward

You haven’t fixed a firm timetable as yet?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, they said I am an interim Prime Minister. We didn’t actually agree on the time, but many thought it must be about two years, that would be sufficient.

Adam Ward

Thank you. Yes, lady there in the second row.

Angela De Maria

Angela De Maria, Chatham House Member. I would like to ask, what role do you see for Islamic finance in your country economy?

Adam Ward

What’s the role of Islamic finance in Malaysia’s economy?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, it is – we set up the Islamic bank very early on because Muslims are not very happy doing business or borrowing money with interest. So, now we have Islamic banking, they can deposit their money with the bank and they will not be committing the sin of thriving on interest. But the Islamic banking has caught on now. It’s not only in Malaysia, but in the rest of the world we see a lot of Islamic banks and also, some conventional bank, they have an Islamic window. So, Muslims today, many Muslims are very, very rich, and when you are rich, you have to manage your funds, but if you cannot put a fixed deposit because you don’t take interest then you are helping the bank to make use of your money, without any returns, and money kept over time would depreciate in value. So, what is possible now is that you borrow under non-interest law and you can do business in a different way, in which the lender also participates in the business, and this is catching on quite well, even among those people who normally can borrow from the commercial banks.

Adam Ward

Thank you. We’ll take just a couple of more questions. We’ll overrun slightly, given the interest there is in the room. The gentleman there with his hand up in the mustard coloured jacket there, yes. One moment. Just wait for the – yeah, there you go.

Jerry Liston

Prime Minister, I’m Jerry Liston, blessed with a large number of Asian in-laws. Your Attorney General recently, in an interview with Malaysiakini, described you as a reformed character, is he right and if so, why?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, he’s both right and wrong. I’m still myself. I still operate in the same way, but I have to show respect for the wishes of the others, about particularly, with regard to what they call cronyism. They believe that I was helping my cronies. Actually, I was helping people who are capable of profiting from whatever business they do. If you ask somebody who has no business knowledge and ask him to construct a building or to give him a contract to do anything, which he doesn’t know, and has no evidence that he has succeeded in the past, then you’re going to invite failures. So, when we give contracts and other things, today, we must rule by tender. Before there was limited tender and now, we have the full tender, everybody can make a bid and we will then award to the best bid. But that is bit of change in procedures, but otherwise, I’m still focused on rebuilding the country, as I did, in the last 22 years of my Premiership.

Adam Ward

Thank you, and then last question, right at the back, against the wall, gentleman in the brown jacket and blue shirt.

Sahan

Greetings Mr Prime Minster. I’m Sahan a student at Queen Mary. I was reading this article that day and you had a fair share of advice for President Trump. You said he shouldn’t be too hard on China. Well, how do you believe he should confront these unfair Chinese trade practices, besides placing tariffs on them? Thank you.

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

He should not send the 7^th fleet there because if you do that you are going to provoke the Chinese and they will send their fleet there. There will be tension and eventually, there might be somebody forgot something and might shoot at each other, but always try to have a dialogue with them. Talk with them. I don’t think the Chinese are so bad that you cannot talk with them. Even, they are open to negotiation and you can negotiate, instead of increasing the import duties on goods coming from China, which actually, hurts the poor Americans. So, when you have a conflict like that, there are three things you can do: either negotiate or arbitrate or go to a court of law. And when you go to a court of law, you must accept the results and the decision made by the court, but if, in the case of some countries when they lose in a court of law, they take to the – they confront each other, that is not the way. You go to the courts, you win some, you lose some, that is part of the principle of justice that we accept and practice nowadays.

Adam Ward

Prime Minister, maybe just by closing this, I mean, I could invite you just make some personal reflections on the last year, you did not expect to be in this position. You were somebody who considered them self to be long in retirement, called back to service. Just on a day-to-day basis, what is the experience of that been like, returning to a completely altered Government machinery, with a different political party, but expected to do the same job at obviously a later age as well?

HE Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

Well, it is totally different from my last experience when I took over as Prime Minster. When I became Prime Minister in 1981, everything was in place. The Civil Service was well trained and they performed their part of the work quite well, and there was corruption of course, but hardly damaging to the country. The level of corruption is so low that it is not a priority for us, but this time around, when I move in as Prime Minister, I find that the whole machinery of Government has been corrupted. Yeah, I mean, literally, they are stealing money, some of them, not all, of course not all, Officers who are here. But the fact is that I have had to do a job of cleaning up the whole machinery of Government, so this time it is even tougher. If I am as young as I was in 1981, I think I can put up with the strain, but here, it is almost unbearable, the amount of decisions that has to be made, even changing heads of department, appointing somebody to take over, all these things I have to decide because that’s the job of the Prime Minister. So, the experience is not the same, but to the extent that I can, I will try to do the right things.

Adam Ward

Well, in the context of those competing demands on your time, thank you very much again for coming to spend an hour with us here at Chatham House, Prime Minister [applause].