Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong will be in KL to lecture Malaysians on Australia and South East Asian security- Will she address her apparent disapproval of UK-Malaysia defence ties
by Ganesh Sahathevan
Penny Wong and Rory Medcalf AM will be speaking in Kuala Lumpur on 10 July 2025.
They now have an opportunity to explain to Malaysians how Penny Wong's demanding that UK apologise for its colonial past , despite its long standing defence ties with Malaysia , Brunei and Singaopre, is "actually a geopolitical play" intended to craft a new scaffolding for AUKUS.
The existing "scaffolding" does not, it seems, matter:
Rory Medcalf AM also makes reference to the impoverished circumstances of Penny Wong's Sabah Hakka-Cantonese family , which was apparently mistreated by some English family (Penny says her grandmother worked for an English family as a maid, after WW2).
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TO BE READ WITH
The UK confronted its colonial past in Malaysia in 1988 with a USD1.95 Billion arms deal, a contract to construct the Pergau Dam, and other deals which were concluded when Penny Wong was at uni, playing undergraduate politics -The AUKUS scaffolding that Wong is said to be crafting by demanding that the UK confront its colonial history was built on those deals, and others like it built on networks that go back 200 years
by Ganesh Sahathevan
In 1981 Mahathir Mohamad became a prime minister of Malaysia for the first time. One of his first decisions was to order that the existing preferential trade arrangements between the UK and Malaysia be terminated, and that Malaysia look to Japan instead for trade, technology, education and cultural exchanges. That was the beginning of Malaysia's Look East Policy, which remains to this day. Some described the policy as a "put British last" policy.
The decision was not an easy to implement given the very deep ties that had developed between Malaysia and the UK, often at a personal level, over a period of 200 or so years on British rule. By 1988 Mahathir softened his anti-UK policies, and marked it with an order for USD 1.95 billion in arms.
The deal followed an official visit to Malaysia by then UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and involved Thatcher signing a memorandum of understanding authorizing British aid to the Pergau Dam project near the Malaysia-Thailand border. Allegation of corruption arose later, in 1993, and Malaysia cancelled the arms deal, adding one more layer of complexity to the relationship between the two countries.
Meanwhile "Malaysia views the Five Power Defence Agreement as a “safety net” should events outside the capability of the Malaysian Armed Forces occur. Besides Malaysia, the other FPDA members are Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and United Kingdom. The FPDA is the only multilateral defence cooperation which Malaysia has been a member of since 1971. Although it remains untested at war or conflict, the FPDA is an effective conflict management tool and has contributed towards MAF’s development and enhancement of its professionalism".
The UK has similar strong defense and trade ties with its other colonies in SouthEast Asia, Singapore and Brunei. It is these ties that enable AUKUS, a fact that should be obvious to anyone with even a limited understanding of China's intrusion into the South China Sea.
Despite that history Australia's newly appointed Foreign Minister, speaking at King's College has demanded that the United Kingdom apologise for its colonial past, drawing in part on her family history . The Wong's are like most Sabah Hakkas , of the upper classes, but her grandmother she says once worked as an amah for an English family.
Based on that speech Australian expert Rory Medcalf says Wong’s colonial history lesson was actually a geopolitical play.
He makes no reference to exisiting UK-Malaysia-Brunei-Singapore defence ties.
There is no need for any new scaffolding, and certainly not one crafted by a politician playing undergraduate politics (or worse) and geopolitical strategists who seem unaware of the history of this region.
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