Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR. MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : THE PENANG MUTIARA BEACH
RESORT, PENANG
Tarikh/Date : 13/11/94
Tajuk/Title : THE PACIFIC DIALOGUE
Let me begin by wishing you all a very warm welcome to
Malaysia and particularly to this beautiful island of
Penang. I hope that your stay will be a pleasant and
fruitful one.
2. If you have not been here before , I hope you will be
able to find some time to see a little of our country. If
you have not been here for some time, I hope that you will
notice the changes.
3. In the last quarter century, we have been growing by an
average close to seven percent per annum. In the last seven
years, we have been growing at 8.4 per cent per year,
with an average inflation rate of 3.6 per cent. Over the
coming generation to 2020, we hope to grow by an annual
average of seven percent. If we can do this, we can by that
year become a fully developed country with a standard of
living comparable to that of the United States today.
4. We take a measure of pride from the fact that we were
the first country in the then "Free World" to defeat a
Communist insurgency. We take a measure of pride from the
fact that shortly, I will not say how shortly, we will be
having our tenth general elections. We are proud of the
fact that since 1955, when we held the first elections to
choose the first pro Independence government, we have had
eight indisputably free elections: in 1959, 1964, 1969,
1974, 1978, 1982, 1986 and 1990, elections in which
opposition parties not only won seats but have been able to
take over state Governments. This is quite a record for a
developing, new and newly independent democracy.
5. We are a democracy, giggles and cynical smiles
notwithstanding. This multi-ethnic and multi-religious
country, with all its difficulties and challenges, could not
have made it without a healthy and sustainable democracy.
God knows what would have happened had we adopted the
Swedish form of democracy, or the Italian form or the
Japanese form of democracy. I say this without meaning to
imply that there is anything wrong with the Swedish form or
the Italian form or the Japanese form. I only mean to say
to each his own.
6. We certainly could not have made it without peace,
political stability and a secure rule of law. Nor could we
have made it if we are as corrupt as we are reported to be.
Corrupt countries do not achieve 8 per cent growth and
political stability. I will say nothing of the record in
the countries of the erstwhile critics.
7. The Government can take some of the credit. But let me
say that this country could not have achieved what we have
achieved if not for the fact that our people have been
willing to shed their blood in the struggle for their peace
and their future. The people have been willing to toil and
sweat to build this nation. What Malaysia is today is
largely the result of the genius, the grit and the sweat of
the Malaysian people.
8. Let me also add that we could not have successfully
completed the journey to the present without the
contribution that was made by our friends from abroad. And
it is impossible for Malaysians to contemplate a successful
journey to their 2020 future without the greatest
contribution of our friends from abroad. It simply cannot
be done.
9. It is because of this realisation that I would like to
stress to you the importance that we place on securing as
much American investment, techology and know-how as
possible. A great deal has been done in the past. I
believe it is not good enough. Much much more needs to be
done.
10. According to the US embassy, the United States now
sells more to Malaysia than it sells to all of Eastern
Europe plus Russia. This sounds good. It is. But I
believe that trade between Malaysia and the United States
should also be taken to new heights.
11. American firms have a comparatively good reputation for
technology transfer. We would like to see their reputation
improve even further.
12. What I say of the United States applies to all of the
economies represented in this room, indeed to all economies.
Japan has of course played a most critical role in the saga
of Malaysian development. Some now consider Japan a country
of the past. I believe that it remains a country of the
future.
13. Let me now turn to broader issues.
14. Let me concentrate my remarks on only three points.
First, let me make the strongest case possible for a new
mindset and a new crusade that all the countries here
represented should join. I most earnestly believe that we
must work together and for the first time in human history
for a single global commonwealth founded on the principle of
cooperative prosperity.
15. Second, we must welcome, engage, persuade and drag the
entire world into the making of the future prosperity of
East Asia. It will not be just for the good of East Asia.
It will be good for the whole world.
16. Third, we must seek to establish a new world order
securely grounded not only in the idea of common prosperity
but also in mutual understanding and mutual regard.
17. Many of us in this room are extremely worried about
the increasing attraction of beggar-thy-neighbour attitudes.
There are regions that are so internally preoccupied that
they are too busy to see others running fast -- and past.
There are regions in danger of turning inward. There are
dangers of inward-looking trading blocs.
18. I do not condemn regionalism. Far from it. After a
quarter century, we of the ASEAN Community are all too aware
of the remarkable direct payoffs and equally remarkable
indirect consequences of the entire ASEAN experience. We
have established not only a community of peace and stability
but also a community committed by deed as well as words to
open regionalism.
19. So long as there is this commitment to open
regionalism, the opening of the regions is adhered to, I
believe that every region has the right to organise itself
and to cooperate among themselves. Indeed, if there is this
commitment to open regionalism and this attempt to open
regions, regional states do have a duty to cooperate, and
thus contribute to open globalism.
20. But is there anyone here not concerned about the
protectionist impulses that are emerging at the regional as
well as the national levels, even from former champions of
free trade?
21. With the end of the Cold War, we have for the first
time in human history, an opportunity to build a single
global economic system. Given time and with the forces of
globalism, this is in fact inevitable. What farsighted and
enlightened leadership should ensure is that there is a
single global economic system as soon as possible. We need
to ensure as much prosperity for everyone as possible. We
need to ensure that we create a prosperous global
commonwealth.
22. In the 1930s beggar-thy-neighbour policies ran rampant.
During the Cold War, prosper-thy-friend and beggar-thy-foe
policies held sway. It is time for us all to adopt
prosper-thy-neighbour policies. This is what we in ASEAN
are trying to do with the wider Southeast Asia. We are
working very hard at it.
23. This is what many economies in East Asia are
deliberately doing. It is no less virtuous because we are
doing it out of love of ourselves even more than out of love
for our neighbours or our region.
24. Imagine what would be the consequences if all economies
on this planet were to have this orientation and actively
pursue these policies? Imagine the consequences if
prosper-thy-neighbour policies and the ideology of
cooperative prosperity were to run rampant? The
twenty-first century will be mankind's most bountiful,
greatest century.
25. The world took a step forward when the Uruguay Round
was completed and when GATT could no longer be so easily the
butt of the joke that "G" "A" "T" "T" stood for a general
agreement to talk and talk. It is crucially important for
the negotiated outcome to be quickly ratified. It is
crucially important to build upon what has been agreed and
to seek to go beyond, towards even greater liberalisation
and towards greater global economic freedom.
26. I am proud that Malaysia ratified the GATT agreement on
September 6 this year. We were one of the first countries
in the world to do so. After the ratification, our
trade-weighted average level of protection fell to 8.5 per
cent. In the recent Budget we went further, with the most
sweeping step ever taken, to unilaterally abolish all import
duties on 2,600 items.
27. It might well be argued that unlike many other
economies, Malaysia is a competitive economy, extremely open
to the world, with an already liberalised market. Our
protection level is already very low. Therefore, Malaysia
loses nothing if other nations were to open up and the level
of protection in ASEAN or East Asia or the Pacific or the
world were to be brought down to Malaysia's level. Malaysia
would not lose anything and would have much to gain.
28. This argument is fundamentally flawed because the
primary purpose of freeing one's economy and opening it to
all comers is not in order to negotiate a similar opening on
the part of others. In fact, the great nineteenth century
inventors of the doctrine of free trade would be completely
surprised by the argument of reciprocity. They believed
that the main gain from opening one's economy and thus
competing against all comers, especially the most
competitive, was the gain in one's own competitiveness and
strength. This is the justification for trade
liberalisation. They were and are absolutely right. How
else could the Malaysian economy have become competitive?
29. No economy can be competitive if it relies on the dole
and on avoidance of competition with the best and most
competitive. God help those who wish to hide behind high
walls of protection. It is a certain formula for decay and
weakness.
30. Let me now turn to my second argument.
31. Once upon a time, not long ago, East Asia consisted of
economies that were uncompetitive, poor, stagnant or worse.
Every economy without any exception was, at one point or
another in the post-war period, given up for lost or dead.
Let us not forget that till the early 1950s, there were
still reports of Japanese dying of malnutrition and
starvation. More than one Japanese administration despaired
over the prospect of Japan ever becoming a competitive and
dynamic economy.
32. Today, almost all the economies of East Asia are
regarded in hyperbolic terms. "Miracle" is a common word.
We are often compared to some of the fiercest and feared
animals. This region of dominoes is now seen to be a region
of dynamos. Obviously an economic revolution of some sort
has taken place.
33. Just about everybody expects this cumulative revolution
to continue until well into the 21st century. Who am I to
disagree, since the predictions are all so agreeable and
comforting?
34. What we East Asians have to make sure is that we do not
shoot ourselves in the foot or some more vital part of the
anatomy. We cannot afford to give up the hard slog, the
sweat, the toil, the toil and the toil. We must never,
never become arrogant. I have always believed that pride
always comes before a fall. We must always hold firmly to
our natural Asian humility.
35. We must also hold firmly to our commitment to open
regionalism. I have repeatedly stated that this must mean
that in any regional effort we undertake, we must firstly be
wedded to trying to open our region further. Secondly, we
must make sure that intent is translated into reality. Our
region must be further opened. This is what we have seen
happen in East Asia especially over the last two decades.
Which is why we are today extremely dynamic and competitive.
36. In 1992, the East Asian regional economy overtook the
Western European regional economy and the North American
regional economy in purchasing power parity terms. In
foreign exchange US dollar terms, this will not happen until
the year 2000 or so.
37. Since the Europeans launched their effort to create a
single European economy in the mid-1980s, East Asia has been
the fastest integrating region in the world. For this we
have America largely to thank, because of the Plaza Accord.
38. Driven largely by investment, intra-East Asian trade
has so far in the 1990s been increasing at the rate of 20
per cent per annum. With intra-East Asian trade standing at
43 per cent, the East Asian regional economy is more
integrated than the NAFTA regional economy. Unlike the
European and NAFTA case, our massive regional integration,
which continues to accelerate, has been entirely
private-sector driven. It has been the consequence purely
of market forces. In the years ahead, this must remain so.
39. To cut a long story short, what I would like to
emphasise is that we must warmly welcome, strenuosly engage,
vigorously persuade and drag North America and Western
Europe, if necessary, by the scruff of their necks, into the
making of our economic future. Without neglecting anyone at
all, while ploughing every field in every part of the world,
our primary strategic target must surely be the North
American and Western European firms of every size -- the
huge, the big, and the small.
40. The European Union and the World Bank now say that by
the year 2000, which is only 61 months away, there will be
400 million East Asians with the per capita income of North
America and Western Europe. In other words, there will be
more East Asian consumers with high purchasing power than
North American or European consumers with high purchasing
power. The IMF says that between now and the year 2000, the
total world GDP will rise by US$7.5 trillion. More than
half of that increase will be produced in East Asia.
41. Despite all these mind-boggling statistics, many of us
still feel that most of the rest of the world has yet to
wake up to the East Asian opportunity. And of course, far
too many are only content to see us only as "the East Asian
threat".
42. Let me now proceed to my last point. I do believe that
there really is a great need to have much more mutual
understanding and mutual regard.
43. There are now those who see the future in terms of the
"clash of civilisations". Samuel Huntington ended his
Foreign Affairs article by calling for co-existence between
the world's great civilisations. I think that Professor
Huntington is very wrong and his conflict orientation is
very dangerous. But the point I wish to stress is that
co-existence is not good enough. Why can we not set a
higher objective? Why not mutual understanding? Why not
mutual appreciation and regard?
44. Exactly one month ago, at the "Europe/East Asia Summit"
organised by the World Economic Forum, I challenged the
Europeans to not only understand us but also to appreciate
pluralism.
45. Let me make myself perfectly plain. Bad governance
should attract the condemnation of all mankind. Atrocities
are atrocities wherever they occur. No atrocity is in any
way less of an atrocity simply because it is Asian.
46. But I asked the Europeans why it is that so many from
Europe understand and appreciate the fact that Asian music
should develop along its own path and should not be great
imitations of the Beatles, Aznavour and Mozart. And yet so
many cannot tolerate any Asian form of governance that is
not a fair copy of the European form.
47. Why is it that so many from Europe understand and
appreciate Asian art and celebrate its enormous diversity
and take it as only natural that it is not a carbon copy of
European art? And yet so many insist that Asian ways of
business and economics, politics and administration cannot
be legitimate unless they are carbon copies of European
ways.
48. Why is Asian music, art and literature celebrated
because they are so uniquely different from European music,
art and literature and yet Asian values and ways of
governance, politics and economics are so villified and
detested by so many, when they are found to be different?
49. I informed the Europeans that there has to be a greater
equalisation of humility and the disappearance of what some
will call incredible arrogance.
50. As an Asian, I am very proud of the
achievements that East Asia has been able to make in recent
times. We have a peace that is more secure than at any time
in the last century and a half. Nevertheless, there is a
long distance still to go.
51. We have seen the march of democratisation, people
empowerment and human rights with a breadth and depth seldom
seen in the history of mankind. It is unparalleled. It
cannot be stopped. Life expectancy in Shanghai now exceeds
life expectancy in New York. Yet we are only at the
beginning of our long journey. And we cannot sit back with
folded arms and be satisfied with what has so far been
achieved.
52. Very recently, the European Commission issued a
path-breaking policy paper. It was called "Towards a New
Asia Strategy". This paper argues: "Asia's growing economic
weight is inevitably generating increasing pressures for a
greater role in world affairs. At the same time, the ending
of the Cold War has created a regional environment of
unparalleled political fluidity. Consequently, the European
Union should seek to develop its political dialogue with
Asia and should look for ways to associate Asia more and
more with the management of international affairs, working
towards a partnership of equals, capable of playing a
constructive and stabilising role in the world."
53. I do not know whether these words will be turned into
reality. But perhaps the European Union is on to the right
path. At this stage, I do not believe that East Asia even
thinks of equality. But we do demand some respect.
Perhaps, in the days ahead, we will be entitled to a
little.
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