Editor’s note for April 4, 2023
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
Dear reader,
“Malaysia, Truly Asia” has been an advertising slogan of the Malaysian tourist authorities since 1999. People who lived in east Asia from that year and the next decade will remember it as the chorus of a TV commercial that was aired constantly on Star TV and CNN’s Asian feed.
As Tourism Malaysia explains:
No other country has Asia’s three major races, Malay, Chinese, Indian, plus various other ethnic groups in large numbers. Nowhere is there such exciting diversity of cultures, festivals, traditions and customs, offering myriad experiences. No other country is “Truly Asia” as Malaysia.
Some may not like the definition of Asia’s “three major races,” but few will doubt Malaysia is also stuck right now in the middle of a number of major competing forces.
In the coming years, Kuala Lumpur will have to balance its trade and tech ties to China and to the U.S., its claims on parts of the South China Sea that China also wants, its role in China’s Belt and Road and much more.
Some of these issues were discussed by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim during a four-day trip to Beijing that just concluded. Friendly noises were made, but nothing was really settled. See our top story below for more.
Our Word of the Day is Malaysia Truly Asia Festival 2022, which took place in Beijing in August last year and was rendered in Chinese as:
2022马来西亚亚洲魅力所在风情节
èr líng èr èr mǎláixīyà yàzhōu mèilì suǒzài fēngqíng jié
The literal meaning of this is something like “2022 festival of Malaysia, the place of Asia’s charm.”
