Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times, Barry Wain [best mystery novels of all time .txt] 📗

development. Thatcher's hand-crafted settlement was critical. It confirmed that the super-sensitive Dr. Mahathir sought consideration, appreciation and homage from the West, particularly from the country that had lorded over Malaysia for more than a century. It also reinforced Dr. Mahathir's belief that it did not necessarily pay to be nice to everyone. As it was, Thatcher found in Dr. Mahathir a kindred spirit, "almost a man to envy".[44] Her feelings were fully reciprocated, with Thatcher being awarded an honorary degree from a university in Dr. Mahathir's constituency.

While the bilateral relationship remained warm until Thatcher was deposed by her party in 1990, Dr. Mahathir was prepared to slap down the British again if they overstepped some invisible mark, or Malay confidence faltered before what one analyst called "the British aura of superiority".[45] London's Sunday Times obliged in 1994, when John Major was prime minister, by reporting "high-level corruption" around a tendering process in Malaysia. It came as the British Parliament and press probed possible illegal links between a 1.3 billion pounds arms sale to Malaysia, signed by Dr. Mahathir and Thatcher in 1988, and aid for the Pergau hydroelectric dam in Kelantan. Angered by the British government's failure to defend both the deal and his integrity, Dr. Mahathir launched another boycott of British commerce, including the cancellation of some major projects on the eve of closure. The decision was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who echoed Mahathir's "obsession with white racism" by trying to portray the Sunday Times report as a slight on all Malaysians.[46] In a lengthy letter to the Financial Times, Dr. Mahathir said, "Of course the natives are corrupt. They must be because they are not British and not white."[47]

While Dr. Mahathir's reaction seemed to expose his insecurities, Major's condescending comment, immediately after the prohibition was imposed, betrayed traces of the colonial mentality Dr. Mahathir detested. Major suggested that the reason Malaysia was prosperous was due to British trade and investment.[48] He had learned nothing from his predecessor where Dr. Mahathir was concerned. Just the same, Dr. Mahathir moved quickly to limit the scope and shorten the duration of the boycott this time — seven months — mindful that London might retaliate with the backing of its European partners.

Although Dr. Mahathir initially deflected American overtures and spent the next couple of years criticizing the West, especially the United States, for failing to understand or support the economic aspirations of developing countries, he soon made amends. The United States was one of Malaysia's most important economic partners, and American capital and appetite for Malaysian goods were an essential part of Dr. Mahathir's plans to develop the country. On his first official visit to Washington in 1984, Dr. Mahathir travelled with some of Malaysia's most influential businessmen and bankers, their way smoothed by Daim Zainuddin, dispatched by Dr. Mahathir nine months earlier, again as a personal envoy. Daim had persuaded the Americans to limit sales of stockpiled tin in view of weak world demand for a key Malaysian export, and the success of his representations prompted Kuala Lumpur to intensify its lobbying efforts in Washington.[49] Dr. Mahathir got to meet what diplomats called the "first team": President Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Treasury Secretary Ronald Reagan and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.

The most far-reaching outcome of the visit, however, was a security — not an economic — agreement, what one analyst called, when details began to leak almost two decades later, "a secret defense treaty".[50] Without informing his countrymen and women, Dr. Mahathir threw in his lot with the Americans, agreeing to naval ship visits, ship and aircraft repairs, joint military exercises in Malaysia and close cooperation between the two militaries. Thereafter, Dr. Mahathir could launch regular rhetorical broadsides at the United States, winning a name in Malaysia and the rest of the developing world for his courage in standing up to Washington, knowing his relations with the Americans rested on a secure bedrock. When the United States lost the use of major military bases in the Philippines in 1991-92, the Malaysians criticized Singapore for offering to accept a small number of military personnel and provide facilities to enable the U.S. Seventh Fleet to retain a forward presence in Southeast Asia. Yet Malaysia covertly was providing similar facilities, which allowed the Americans to implement a "places not bases" strategy. Dr. Mahathir publicly disputed the need for the U.S. Navy to patrol the region, but privately helped make it possible. And while he noisily disagreed, from the early 1990s, with Western officials who worried that a powerful China might become a neighbourhood bully, in practice he indulged in classic hedging: He contributed to a balance of power arrangement and effectively paid insurance premiums to the United States in case anything went wrong.

The innocuous sounding Bilateral Training and Consultation (BITAC) agreement entered into by Malaysia and the United States in 1984 established a series of working groups for exercises, intelligence sharing, logistics support and general security issues.[51] Officially, it was not an agreement at all, according to a former American air attache in Kuala Lumpur, William E. Berry, Jr., "because that was too structured for that crafty old fox, Mahathir". The prime minister was being careful because of his public opposition to foreign military bases in the region, Berry explained.[52] The Americans played along, doing nothing to draw attention to the commitment and allowing Dr. Mahathir to flaunt his independence and claim, "We are aligned with no one."[53]

Nevertheless, BITAC was the basis for vastly expanded military cooperation between the two countries. The U.S. Air Force and navy made use of its provisions to establish air-to-air and air-to-ground training, while the U.S. army got access to the excellent jungle warfare training school at Pulada in Johore. With Malaysian assistance, the U.S. Navy developed a small-ship repair facility at Lumut on the West Coast, and the U.S. Air Force later established a facility in Kuala Lumpur to repair C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. As the Philippine bases closed, particularly Crow Valley, the main bombing