WIKILEAKS: MALAYSIAN RACIAL ECONOMIC PREFERENCES CRITIQUED AT CONFERENCE IN KL

In response to Lim's presentation, a number of members of the audience spoke out angrily, including a member of the Government's Economic Planning Unit (EPU) who resorted to a personal attack on Lim rather than on the points he raised. Another critic in the audience, Ms. Aminah binti Pit Abdul Rahman who had been a government employee for 23 years, became visibly agitated and reminded the audience that ethnic Malays comprised 60 percent of the population; therefore, she argued (or rather shouted) that the government targets should be raised from 30 percent to 60 or 70 percent.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

1. (SBU) Summary: Malaysia's race-based economic preferences were roundly criticized at the annual National Economic Outlook Conference hosted by the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER). In the keynote address, the Crown Prince of the State of Perak called for national unity and pragmatic economic policies designed to improve the country's competitiveness, essentially a polite rejection of race-based policies. Stronger attacks on Malaysia's racial preferences were made by a former World Bank economist and an Australian academic who argued that incentives in Malaysia's economy were becoming increasingly distorted, leading to a loss of competitiveness. While no one expects the government of Malaysia to undertake policy change in this sensitive area in the near term, it is notable that a government-funded think tank provided the forum for this much needed debate. End Summary.

CROWN PRINCE OF STATE OF PERAK CALLS FOR CHANGE

2. (U) In his keynote address the Crown Prince of the State of Perak called for "pragmatism and fairness," a subtle attack on the government's current policies in terms of both its economic agenda and its divisive racial preferences. On the economic front, he described Malaysia as "squeezed between the low-cost economies of China and Vietnam and the high-technology economies of Japan and South Korea," and called for "the most competitive, innovative and flexible responses."

3. (U) He cited the oft-repeated mantra that Malaysia needs to move "up the technological ladder"; however, a far greater part of his address focused on social and human capital, which he said were essential to development. He said Malaysia must foster networks among its different ethnic, religious, and territorial groups. He called for "increasing opportunities for bonding and bridging in residential neighborhoods, classrooms and the workplace, all with the understanding that more cultural mix is better."

4. (U) Alluding to the ongoing brain drain, the Crown Prince asked, "Can entrepreneurs, scientists, and technologists be nurtured without an enabling political, social, economic and cultural environment? Can they flourish in the presence of perverse incentives and disincentives? ...There are countries today whose citizens are highly educated and whose scientists and engineers are at the leading edge in their fields but who want nothing more than to leave their countries. Countries must change in line with the aspirations of their citizens or they risk losing their best and brightest."

MEASURING WEALTH BY RACE

5. (SBU) Lim Teck Ghee, a leading economic analyst and former World Bank staffer, calmly explained his earlier study on distribution of wealth among Malaysia's racial groups (reftels) which concluded that the wealth of ethnic Malays had already exceeded the government's targets. His conclusion effectively challenged the stated basis of the government's racial preference policies. Lim also briefly reviewed several other studies that had reached similar conclusions.

Two studies from the late 1980s suggested that that the lower classes bore the highest social costs of the racial preference policies, while a small group among the upper classes enjoyed the benefits. Two other studies, one from 1989 and another from 2002, concluded that the government's wealth targets for ethnic Malays had been reached or exceeded, as did Lim's own 2006 study.

6. (U) Lim reviewed some of the findings and recommendations of his earlier study on the impact of Malaysia's racial policies on the economy and society. First, he pointed out that the government holds more than a third of publicly traded corporate equity, but that government-controlled companies reflected little entrepreneurial or manufacturing capacity. He recommended that government-owned entities be managed by competent professionals with expertise in the business of the company under their charge. Senior management positions should not be determined on the basis of race.

7. (U) Second, he pointed out that the current practice of distributing 30 percent of initial public offerings (IPOs) to individual ethnic Malays generally benefited only an elite few who often divested the shares immediately for huge profits. Lim recommended that Malay IPO allocations not go to individuals unless a mechanism could be introduced to ensure that the beneficiaries played a prominent role in the management of these companies. One option would be to make such allocations to existing trust agencies for Malays and to community-based trust agencies for Malaysian Indians and residents of Malaysian Borneo. [Note: among these two groups are some of Malaysia's poorest people. End note.]

8. (U) Third, Lim said GOM regulations and policies were stymieing entrepreneurial development and hindering domestic and foreign investment. Ethnic preferences undermined entrepreneurial endeavors and the creation of a competitive economic environment. The GOM could better achieve its goals through capacity building efforts such as education and skills training rather than through forced equity restructuring.

ECONOMIC FREEDOM: FROM 9TH TO 60TH PLACE

9. (U) More Malaysian feathers were ruffled when Wolfgang Kasper, Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of New South Wales, Australia, displayed graphs demonstrating a direct correlation between economic freedom and prosperity and cited the Cato Institute's "Economic Freedom of the World" 2007 Annual Report which ranked Malaysia as 9th most free country in 1990 but as 60th in 2005. Kasper described Malaysia as having reached that halfway point in its development and outlined the elements of the rest of the journey: secure property rights, free markets, and a small, rule-bound, non-corrupt government.

He summed up his analysis of Malaysia as follows: "The politicization of economic life leads to stagnation and social convulsion, a prospect that only the unrealistic and naive can face with self-satisfied complacency. It seems to me that it would be much more naive and unrealistic to tolerate the cancer of crony capitalism and heavy reliance on pervasive, top-down bureaucratic controls and big government.... It is the big political challenge of the present generation of decision makers to abandon short-sighted, selfish rent-seeking in order to ensure that the vision of the developed-country shore ahead can be attained."

RESPONSES FROM THE AUDIENCE

10. (U) In response to Lim's presentation, a number of members of the audience spoke out angrily, including a member of the Government's Economic Planning Unit (EPU) who resorted to a personal attack on Lim rather than on the points he raised. Another critic in the audience, Ms. Aminah binti Pit Abdul Rahman who had been a government employee for 23 years, became visibly agitated and reminded the audience that ethnic Malays comprised 60 percent of the population; therefore, she argued (or rather shouted) that the government targets should be raised from 30 percent to 60 or 70 percent. Some respondents in the audience were upset about Kasper's comments, with one indignantly noting that Malaysia should be praised for progress achieved.

11. (SBU) Comment: In the run-up to national elections, due by April 2009 but expected before April 2008, there has been increased attention paid to the GOM's economic and social policies in general and its 37-year old race-based economic preference policies in particular. There is widespread concern among non-Malays that these policies are marginalizing them and therefore breaking down Malaysia's social cohesion. Many of the country's best and brightest non-Malay youth are migrating, perceiving little long-term hope of being treated as anything but second-class citizens in Malaysia. Many ethnic Malays, on the other hand, maintain a more defensive posture, apparently convinced of the rhetoric that they are more deserving of special protections because of their past disadvantage.

Their outbursts at the conference in response to criticism of the status quo [except, of course, that of the Crown Prince of Perak] were more emotional than pragmatic. Despite a handful of such outbursts, the overwhelming majority of the audience remained silent. At lunch a Malay who had been government employee for many years expressed gratitude for Kasper's presentation on economic freedom, telling econoff, "We need foreigners to say these things." While little change can be expected in the near term, the biggest news is that these kinds of issues can be discussed at all in a conference hosted by a government-funded think tank. The conference would appear to be another example where Prime Minister Badawi's government is ready to allow more open debate as a first step toward possible revisions in policy at a future date when it becomes politically feasible to do so.

KEITH (December 2007)