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Opinion | There’s no place for Chinese belt, road or three-bedroom flats in the new Malaysia under Mahathir

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Prospective buyers look at a model of the development at the Country Gardens' Forest City showroom in Johor Bahru, Malaysia on February 21, 2017. Photo: Reuters

Bloomberg

Published: 12:56pm, 29 Aug 2018Updated: 2:30pm, 29 Aug 2018

Perplexed, wounded, indignant or still optimistic. The Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings can put any spin it wants on its Forest City project, a US$100 billion Malaysian township whose fate suddenly has been thrown into doubt after Mahathir Mohamad’s pointed refusal to let foreigners buy apartments or live in them long-term.

One thing is clear, though: The prime minister is not acting impulsively. The project claims to be a “new global cluster of commerce and culture,” and a “dream paradise for all mankind”.

However, in Malaysian political discourse, Forest City is just a gigantic Chinatown of 700,000 residents. Taking on the developer is part of Mahathir’s broader plan to redefine Malaysia’s relationship with Beijing, pulling Kuala Lumpur away from the client-state mindset introduced by his predecessor.

Already, the 93-year-old leader has cancelled the Chinese-funded East Coast Rail Link, dealing a blow to China Communications Construction, which was building the US$20 billion “Belt and Road Initiative”. Najib Razak, ousted in May, claimed the link would bring prosperity to eastern Malaysia.

But Mahathir, who spoke bluntly in Beijing this month against “a new version of colonialism,” took a very different view of the railway, which would have connected areas near the Thai border along the South China Sea to busy port cities on Malaysia’s western coast, near the Strait of Malacca.