This discrimination, institutionalized in social laws, policies and practices, directly affects the population of Chinese origin in that country, depriving it of full rights and placing it in a position of second category citizens. Far from improving, the scenario hardened in recent years, promoted by an Islamization of the State and society, an increasingly conservative political climate and the consolidation of Islamist parties such as the PAS, which already dominates several states and points to the central government in 2028. The most disturbing thing is that this situation, does not arouse international outrage, but that it happens inadvertently or is deliberately ignored by all, including China, including China, which should be ensure the security and rights of Chinese communities abroad.
The roots of the Malaysian apartheid are found in the “special rights” policy for the Bumiputera – Literially “Children of the Earth”, that is, the Muslim Malays and certain indigenous communities – introduced into the new economic policy (NEP) of 1971. Under this legal umbrella, this population enjoys privileges in education, employment, public tenders, land ownership and access to credits, while the Chinese and other non -bumiputera are excluded or severely limited. In practice, this means that a young Malaysian Chinese, however brilliant, is less likely to access a public university of prestige than a Malay with mediocre notes, because the quotas are reserved by ethnic quotas. In the public sector, favoritism is explicit: access to public function is mostly forbidden to the Chinese, and in the Armed Forces or the police its presence is marginal. The real estate market is also segmented: Bumiputera receive mandatory discounts from 5% to 15% in the purchase of properties, while the Chinese pay the full price. In state tenders and contracts, participation is restricted by regulations that privilege companies with a majority of bumiputera shareholders.
This system, which already established a structural inequality, was aggravated by the Islamist drift of Malaysia. Since the 1980s, the Umno-dominant part for decades, adopted an Islamization program to compete with the PAS in the capture of the Malay-Muslim vote, with the intensification of religious education in public schools and the reinforcement of the association between national identity and Islam. Consequently, the Malaysian young people grew in an environment where religion and politics are melt, and where Islam presents itself as inseparable from the definition of being bad. This leaves the Chinese, mostly non -Muslim, even more outside the national identity framework.
Today, with the PAS as a dominant parliamentary force and expanding its influence of rural bastions to urban areas, the risk for minorities is greater than ever. This party does not hide its aspiration to make Malaysia a state governed by Sharía, a scenario in which non -Muslim communities would even have less rights and freedoms. Accelerated Islamization already produced a visible social hardening: cases such as that of a Malay old man who slapped a teenager for eating in public during Ramadan becomes viral and are celebrated by sectors that see in the public imposition of religious norms a civic duty. According to recent surveys, 86% of Malaysian Muslims support that Sharía is national law, and among Malaysian young people the main voting criteria is to “defend Islam.”
In this context, the bad Chinese are trapped in a situation of political and social vulnerability. Not only face legal and economic barriers, but also a climate of growing hostility that associates “the bad” with “the Malay-Muslman.” If current trends are maintained, and this country advances towards a theocratic state, non -Muslim minorities will remain in an even more precarious position, without effective protection or outside or outside the country.
The most striking is China’s indifference to this reality. Unlike Israel, which displays diplomatic and military resources to protect Jews anywhere in the world, or the United States, which intervenes politically in the face of the detention or abuse of US citizens abroad, Beijing is silent. Neither Chinese diplomacy nor official agencies denounced apartheid policies that marginalize a population with which they share ethnic and cultural ties. This is partly explained by the nature of the Chinese regime itself, which prioritizes strategic and commercial interests on the defense of the rights of its diaspora. Malaysia is an important partner in the initiative of the Strip and the Route, and Beijing will not risk its investments or its regional influence to defend a minority whose situation, in addition, bothers its own Muslim allies in the Islamic world.
Chinese passivity is doubly ironic because the Beijing regime uses the speech of “The global Chinese nation”For internal and propaganda purposes, but he abandons it when that rhetoric collides with geopolitical interests. For the bad Chinese, this lack of external support means that they do not have a state will nor of the Western powers, more focused on other crises such as the conflict in Ukraine or tensions in the Middle East.
The risk of this disinterest is evident. Recent history shows that when a country adopts increasingly Islamist policies, the space for religious minorities is reduced. States with similar trends became sanctuaries for extremist groups, in societies where individual freedoms are crushed and regional sources of instability. If a significant, economically active and clearly differentiated minority is added to that, the result is a perfect target for repressive policies or even episodes of ethnic violence. Malaysia, in his current career, approaches that scenario dangerously, and every step in political and social radicalization enlarges the risk.
That this process occurs in full view of the world, without sanctions or international convictions, makes Malaysia a unique case: the last state with an apartheid recognized by its own laws and maintained without dissimulation. The difference with other repressive regimes is that here discrimination is open, encoded in public policies and defended as an essential part of national identity. The bad Chinese live it every day in the classrooms, in access to jobs, in business opportunities and political representation. Meanwhile, the country advances towards an increasingly aligned state model with the hardest Islamist currents, and no one seems willing to stop this drift.
In this complicit silence, Malaysian apartheid against the Chinese is not only perpetuated, but is reinforced, driven by a nationalist-religious ideology that fuses ethnic identity and Islamism. If the trend continues, it will not be a surprise that, in a few years, the country appears not only as an example of structural discrimination, but as a focus of regional instability with consequences that will go far beyond their borders. And then, as many times, the speeches of “nobody saw it coming” will be as false as useless.
Things as they are
Mookie Tenembaum addresses international issues like this every week with Horacio Cabak in his podcast the international observer, available in Spotify, Apple, YouTube and all platforms.
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