Today marks the 69th year of independence of Peninsular Malaysia, historically known as Malaya.

To mark this occasion, I like to highlight that the country now generates more electricity per capita than 2/3 of their former colonizers.

There’s a few things to consider.

On a theoretical level, Marx has already explained why exchange and use value diverge in a Capitalist economy. At national scales, it can be explained by numerous mechanisms, most notably Imperialism, unequal exchange, US Dollar hegemony, etc.

But even on a technical level, there are caveats to be had.

Firstly, the PPP basket, uses 2021 data released in 2024. A 5 year old basket that is then index linked forwards til 2026, after 2 major inflationary wars, will understandably affect results and accuracy massively. This precludes the worst of Germany’s energy crisis, China’s post-COVID response, and numerous other structural changes. This is a notable problem with fixed-weight indexes that introduces base drift after the benchmark year.

The PPP conversion factor in non-survey years is extrapolated/interpolated by taking into account inflationary movements (the GDP deflator) between countries, by consequently linking it to changes in the US GDP deflator. Exchange rate does have a role technically here (by feeding into inflation during depreciation cycles for example), but in practice PPP is designed to net out exchange rate and inflation factors in the first place.

Secondly, PPP as a concept is also dubious for gauging real in practice differences. There is not a globally applicable basket. This is something the ICP Programme acknlowedges, where there are regional lists of consumption baskets that is then combined to a global core. But this means in practice, someone in Germany won’t be spending 20% of their income on rent and 30% food, but a global list will have to weight it that way for cross-comparison. So the PPP basket is like a mean compositional average that no real individual country actually spends on but semi-useful for cross comparison.

Thirdly, this all follows manipulating GDP data which relies on the System of National Accounts (SNA), which has it’s own sorts of failures and inadequacies from a Marxist standpoint.

So all in all the data has some explanatory power but remains mired with the complexity of condensing all of human activity into one singular number.

Haji Sulong – Patani’s Reformer, Martyr and Father is a good start. As for the actual situation, due diligence will be needed. I doubt anyone will have a clear picture of what is happening, especially in anglophone media.

The “ISIS” accusations is mostly a red herring. Definitely not a sophisticated organised threat to the States of Southeast Asia like it is in West Asia.

The Deep South, like Issan or the Northern region, are the great rural hinterlands of Thailand. They all have specific histories but more or less can be summarized as peripheries of the Thai nation-state. The recent development is a mere escalation of an ongoing insurgency since the early 2000s. Escalation from whom, I am unsure.

Thai army issues warning after multiple attacks in southern Thailand

Thailand’s Fourth Army Region has advised the public to stay vigilant following the occurrence of multiple violent incidents in its southern border provinces.

According to Thai media reports, successive violent incidents, such as arson and explosions, occurred in the Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani provinces starting from 8 p.m. local time on Saturday evening.

…The Narathiwat Task Force announced in a Facebook post that the entire province would be under curfew from 10:15 p.m. Saturday until 6 a.m. Sunday, noting that residents must obtain permission from local military, police or administrative authorities before leaving in case of urgent matters.

PM Anutin calls urgent meeting after Deep South attacks

PM Anutin called an urgent security meeting after 51 bomb, arson and property-damage incidents were reported across Thailand’s Deep South.

Somewhat, although the military has gotten closer to China as of late. For example, the government rejected Chinese funding for their HSR project, instead funding it internally themselves but military procurement wise has leaned towards Russia, China and South Korea if I remember correctly.

In terms of economic structure, the country is more reliant on Western-aligned capital, namely Japan. Thailand and Indonesia are also applying to join the OECD (it remains to be seen what benefits come from that).

In conventional IR terminology the country would be under a form of middle power hedging. Although under Hexbear Thought it would probably fall under NATO alignment. One could argue that the class structure is less comprador aligned than any Latin American economy though.

Why Thailand must rethink growth strategy

The government dreams of boosting GDP growth by transforming Thailand into a hub for high-tech, high value-added industries such as semiconductors, clean energy and, of course, data centres. However, there is a fundamental flaw in this glittering development strategy. The governor of the Bank of Thailand has acknowledged that the benefits of such industries would accrue mainly to foreign investors, who own both the capital and the technology.

By my estimate, fewer than 500,000 Thai workers would be employed in these new industries — just 1.2% of the country’s 42.4 million-strong workforce. What, then, will become of the remaining 98.8% and their families? Will they simply rely on government handouts?

In my view, that is not a sensible development strategy. For an upper-middle-income economy, any development model should benefit at least half the workforce. Rather than pursuing entirely new high-tech industries, Thailand may be better served by strengthening existing industries that already have high employment potential.

I spent weeks trying to identify the best path forward for Thailand, taking into account its ageing population, widening income gap, weak education system, limited capital and mounting debt burden. I came to the conclusion that the country’s priority should not be maximising GDP growth through an export-led economy, but preserving jobs and narrowing income inequality through import substitution.

Even the mainstream Economists have started to say it.

Thailand and also the Philippines, in Southeast Asia, both face Latin American style economic structures. ISI is not enough. Their own history elucidates but examples in Brazil, Chile or Mexico further corroborates why ISI is not enough. If you don’t sort out the productive structure, you get cycles of civilian-military government, of dynastic “right-wing” and “left-wing” political capture.

You need a rupture. You need to do more.

Perhaps the Marxist literature on the agrarian and urban question can help Thailand solve their predicament? Even other heterodox perspectives and studies on the Asian developmental experience will prove to be useful.

For anyone who wants more details on the VC-funded Tech-Zionist cult of “the Network State”, I recommend vcinfodocs.com.

To summarize:

Something happened while the tech Zionists and their lapdogs screamed about holy war and Jew hunts: The local council simply padlocked Network School for not having a licence to operate.

The tech invasion was closed for contravening zoning laws.

Or to quote WSJ’s heading:

A Tech Founder Wanted to Start a New Country. An Actual Country Got in the Way.

And here comes the downwardly mobile white commentariat living in tourist spots because they are a complete leech in their home and host countries:

The closure of Network School: Another blow to Malaysia’s innovation ecosystem?

Real innovation does not emerge from hardware or policy slogans. It arises from creative individuals who connect dots, challenge assumptions, and build new business models, products, and platforms that generate fresh sources of economic value.

“Innovation ecosystem” = let “creative individuals… connect dots”. Fucking hell. No wonder Australia is in the dumpster.

Network School was precisely such a platform as an incubator designed to nurture bold ideas and translate them into scalable ventures capable of competing regionally and globally.

This is not just a local loss. It risks deterring high-tech investors and the growing global community of digital nomads, estimated at 30–35 million and expanding rapidly.

numbers don’t care about vibes bro.

Malaysia has the highest number of total IPOs and by value in Southeast Asia in 2025, and as of H1 2026. Malaysia has consistently ranked the highest in UN WIPO’s Global Innovation Index, only 2nd below China, in the upper-middle income bracket. The GII is quite silly in many of it’s included indicators, but regardless, individual indicators, like R&D to GDP, or patents/publications per capita, are all still above regional averages.

Just accept that a Global South country is doing capitalism better than you.

Malaysia’s reliance on GLCs weighs on productivity, says OECD

KUALA LUMPUR (July 28): Malaysia’s continued reliance on government-linked companies (GLCs) and government-linked investment companies (GLICs) in strategic sectors has created an uneven playing field for private firms, hindering competition and weighing on productivity, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said.

The OECD attributed the prominence of GLCs to the legacy of the New Economic Policy, which sought to empower the Bumiputera community but had also entrenched the presence of state-linked firms in strategic industries, often at the expense of private sector participation.

It urged Malaysia to ensure state-owned enterprises compete on equal terms with private firms, saying this would help foster a more dynamic and competitive business environment.

Why should Malaysia, a country that averaged 4.5% GDP growth since 2000, take advice from a club that averaged 1.9% GDP growth? The country’s private GFCF has increased by more than 50% since 2015, while public investment has remained stagnant as per the national accounts. Can the OECD explain where “crowding out” has occurred? Need to look at specific sectoral analysis instead of these vague assertions seen in their survey.

An interesting database I was looking through recently: pre-tax income inequality in Malaysia is now lower than Germany according to the World Inequality Database. When not too long ago Malaysia was equivalent to Argentina. Pre-tax and Post-tax Income Gini Index has dropped since 2000 while simultaneously maintaining higher GDPpc growth - which OECD member can say the same?

Malaysia prioritises wage growth over GST return

Economy Minister Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir said Malaysia will prioritise raising wages and expanding the tax base before considering a goods and services tax (GST) return, following the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) recommendation for a broader consumption tax.

Akmal said only about 15% of Malaysia’s workforce currently pays income tax, underscoring the need to address the country’s structural wage issues before introducing broader taxes that could weigh on household consumption.

“While we respect the view from OECD, at the same time, I think what’s more important is how to broaden our tax income,” he said during a press conference after the launch of the latest OECD Economic Survey of Malaysia on Tuesday. “Without the higher pay or better wages, then whatever tax that we introduce may have some repercussions in terms of what people consume or what people earn.”

Politely asking the OECD to fuck off.

To be fair, SK Hynix revenue is still 257% up YoY with operating profit at 557.2%. Its just the market “pricing in” a baseline estimate that was higher than reality. Revelations that China’s domestic supply chains wrt to memory being further ahead than “the market” has first thought also made the risk averse types to look beyond memory in the AI supercycle, ie. other parts of the supply chain, and energy/water infrastructure companies, etc.

Unfortunately for KOSPI, the 2 companies represent half the total market capitalization so movement in those two would affect the index regardless of performance of the others.

Southeast Asia’s Real Decolonization Is Only Beginning Now, Driven by China’s Rise

Full article in link.

(Yicai) July 15 – A new stage in the decolonization in Southeast Asia began recently, triggered not by politics but by the transformative regional growth driven by China’s phenomenal rise, according to the executive director of Penang Institute, one of Malaysia’s major public policy think tanks.

“The broad shift in global economic productivity to East Asia has redrawn supply chains into a tight network in the region,” Dr Ooi Kee Beng said in a recent interview with Yicai…

…The sudden tremendous influx of capital from a growing neighbouring big power should not be seen so much as a threat to be managed as a tidal force exposing how little the region was ever truly its own master even after colonialism, according to Ooi. The biggest misconception outsiders have about modern Southeast Asia after the world war, or during the Cold War, has been that it is a coherent geopolitical region. The region is better understood as one that is defined from without rather than from within by some centripetal force. The historical fact is that the region was very much cut into bits in recent centuries, and its economic and socio-economic connections from pre-colonial times were badly broken.

Although archipelagic, the region had more significant ties between islands and between coastlines and between East and Southeast Asia in pre-colonial times than in the postcolonial era.

In the new era of nation states and with national borders imitating colonial borders, people in the region did not really travel much between these new countries. Their modern orientation continued to veer towards their respective colonial metropolises. Only with budget airlines since 2009 and with ASEAN’s open skies initiative were ordinary Southeast Asians able to get to know each other’s countries more seriously through cheap and constant flights.

Ooi pointed out: “We began getting to know each other again only quite recently, at the people level.”

…Real cross-cultural interactions occur at street level: “If I sit down with you for a meal and eat your food, I begin to feel that I know you,” he said, adding that China’s visa-free policy for several Southeast Asian nations is wonderful for regional socialisation. “You don’t have to do much. Let people mix, and they will get to know each other and learn about each other.”

Almost $1 Billion Later, the US Still Can’t Make a Medical Glove (archive link)

A bit of low effort commentary but seeing the US fail at making an industry that my country specialises in despite being hegemon is quite funny and I will make fun of it.

A dark gray building full of steel tanks and giant reactors sits at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Southern Virginia, a hulking symbol of an abandoned effort to make more medical gloves in the US.

With $123 million in financing from the federal government, the factory was to have been the first in the nation in more than 30 years to produce a key ingredient in the gloves used in exam rooms and hospitals across the country. Now, four-and-a-half years after breaking ground, the Blue Star NBR factory may be a month away from being sold for parts.

“I’m out of money,” said Scott Maier, Blue Star’s chief executive officer. “I’ve got nothing left to mortgage.”

The plan to kickstart production began in 2020. As the Covid pandemic exposed the lack of American manufacturing mettle in personal protective gear, the first Trump administration decided to bolster domestic glove-making capacity. The government under President Joe Biden kept the effort going, financing six companies with $850 million.

Instead of seeding an industry that could reduce dependence on imports, the money doled out left a trail of empty factories. None of the companies is making medical gloves. Almost all still come from abroad, most from Malaysia, with the critical raw material supplied mainly by China.

Okay that’s a lie. Malaysia imports 64% of the raw materials for NBL. The imports mainly comes from South Korea according to this commodity business analysis:

Malaysia depends on imports for 64% of its NBL requirement, mostly from South Korea, ICIS analyst Lina Xu said. South Korea’s NBL production, in turn, is dependent primarily on the Middle East for supply of key raw materials BD and ACN.

…Malaysia, which supplies about 45% of global demand for rubber gloves, is a major supplier of essential personal protective equipment (PPE) to global healthcare systems, according to the Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association (MARGMA).

Even now the cope is that China deindustrialises the US when it’s just blowback.

Sorry folks the free market says that Malaysia and China has a comparative advantage in gloves.

@oliveoil@hexbear.net

I’ll respond here to address both points.

There’s roughly 2 factions that are opposed to the current military-royal bureaucracy and associated agribusiness and rentier capital, an urban elite comprised of the middle classes and the haute bourgeoisie, and the rural masses, mainly semi-proletarians, farmers and migrants (Laotian/Cambodian/Burmese).

The history of Thailand is a case of FDI enclave development and as such of severe spatial uneven development, in which urbanization remains prohibited through feudal-like debt and social structures in the countryside. This is why only 45% of the population are still rural.

There is definitely evidence of proper NED and other CIA infiltrations, especially for Orange supporters (Move Forward Party), but due to their concentrated class allegiance mainly in Bangkok, I don’t personally see a way in which the comprador faction especially can sustain enough of a base to control the entire country. Basically they are idealists and are too incompetent and insulated in their bubble to manage the ongoing contradictions and seize power.

The current greatest risk is that of the ancien regime - the royal-military bureaucracy and rentier Capital. You can look at the statistics yourself, the state does not benefit the masses in anyway. It is the state that has shot and suppressed communists, and killed and disappeared protestors, especially of the mainly rural-based red shirt movement. It is the state that has lead to stagnant wages for 3 decades, mass debt slavery and led the country to be a foreign playground for Western tourists. It is the current administration and classes that allowed US airplanes to refuel and bomb Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. It is the current ruling class that joined SEATO.

I’ll name one more statistic: electricity generation. Vietnam now generates more electricity per capita than Thailand. Why? Because the Thai state does not benefit from mass infrastructure like electrification. Electricity generation in the country has been nearly stagnant for a decade - despite less than 40% of the population having air conditioning.

China’s rise complicates the picture of course, and Thailand does have a relatively strategic geography, but that can be said for any state neighbouring the South China Sea. This has lead to a more accommodative stance by the country to China as anyone competent enough will no who holds the cards now. But current BRI buildouts to the North and South of Thailand implictly understands that despite the central location of Thailand in Mainland Southeast Asia - it is not that important. In practice, the US will struggle to leverage any gains when every other state will retain a Pro-China posture (Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, various Burmese factions, Laos and Cambodia). Chinese investments are growing in Thailand, but it has other avenues to secure and bypass the maritime chokepoints - and that also implies that somehow China won’t just wipe the floor with the US navy in it’s local and home waters.

The USA will no doubt try to install a friendlier regime, but it’s reach is limited by the very nature of the political economy of Thailand. It is heavily decentralized, mired with internal factions and spatial heterogeneity. It isn’t centralised like South Korea or Japan. One has to do the painstaking case of how the current reality will become worse than it already is and list out how (concretely) a “colour revolution” would take place, ie the factions, the social base, the means, etc.

Of course this isn’t team sports, and reality will reveal itself accordingly. I myself am confident that if the oppressed classes continue to exist in the current state, there is more likely a shift to a truly anti-imperialist and materially progressive movement than there is to a comprador client state. I do have that optimism.

Buy-now-pay-later for S$4 bubble tea highlights Thailand’s household debt risk

Governor Vitai Ratanakorn is moving to curb the rapid growth of buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services, which increasingly allow consumers to split everyday purchases into instalments.

…“There are some things that simply shouldn’t be bought on credit, whether it’s a 106 baht (S$4) bubble tea or a 50 baht plate of chicken rice,” Vitai told reporters at a recent press event in Bangkok. “We may have gone too far – when people start financing small purchases, it creates a habit of spending money they don’t have.”

Thai household debt is equivalent to about 87 per cent of gross domestic product, high relative to the rest of the region and unusually exposed to consumer spending rather than housing, which can act as a store of value…

There are some contradictory data points, but consumption debt roughly is around 50%-75% of all household debt.

Unless another re-iteration of Thaksinomics comes into play, involving vast amounts of debt cancellation and restructuring, the economy will continue chugging along until everything falls down.

The relative stability afforded by external factors over the past century (CIA-Military co-operation, the Vietnam War, the Plaza Accords, 90s Cambodia liberalisation, Burmese Civil War) will run out of steam.

When a revolution comes, it is the result of an ancien régime refusing to reform and generate broad-based prosperity. All the noise about geopolitics plays an important but small part in the entire process. The blame rests solely on the ruling class.

So this figure found in an IMF article was going around, and it recognizes a reality that some would call multipolarity.

Interestingly, it reminded me of this table of an article I read a while back on a comparative study on South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment and Malaysia’s New Economic Policy.

Especially in the context of the fall of US’s technological supremacy and the rise of China’s, and the currently ongoing oil shock, undoubtedly the latter half of this decade will showcase the resurgence of the State and open up further avenues for national and class struggle. The question now is if the infrastructure is in place across various nations and countries for progressive factions to seize the moment.

Review of International Political Economy

Economic nationalism as a quest for liberation: the anti-colonial roots of Indonesian IPE and their persistence

ABSTRACT

This article revisits economic nationalism through the lens of postcolonial political thought, examining its role not simply as a developmental strategy but as a liberatory project grounded in anti-colonial struggle. Focusing on the Indonesian case, it foregrounds the contributions of three foundational thinkers, Sukarno, Tan Malaka, and Hatta, whose political-economic visions articulated distinct yet interconnected understandings of economic nationalism. Sukarno positioned economic nationalism within a global anti-imperialist movement centered on solidarity among the oppressed and the transformation of racialized hierarchies. Tan Malaka framed economic sovereignty as inseparable from revolutionary struggle, advancing ekonomi berjuang (struggling economy) as a means of achieving national control over production and resources. Hatta promoted ekonomi kerakyatan (people’s economy) as a model of domestic reconstruction grounded in cooperative development and cultural practices of mutual aid. Situating these thinkers alongside cognate post- and anti-colonial traditions in International Political Economy (IPE), particularly W.E.B. Du Bois’ analysis of the global color line and Samir Amin’s concept of delinking, the article shows how Indonesian thought articulated themes that resonate strongly with contemporary decolonial IPE. It further demonstrates how these intellectual traditions continue to inform contemporary policies, including nickel downstreaming and the promotion of the Islamic economy.

A choice paragraph:

Sukarno viewed the international system as racially hierarchical, shaped by imperial domination and colonial legacies. He saw Western hegemony as perpetuating a structurally unequal global order and called for a ‘Revolution of Humankind’ to transform it. His vision combined moral urgency with political strategy, grounded in Third World solidarity and the assertion of political equality through multilateralism. Tan Malaka offered a far more radical critique. He conceptualized the international order as an extension of colonial capitalism, where global structures reproduced the economic subjugation of the South. His worldview was rooted in Marxism and anti-imperialism, calling for revolutionary change through transnational alliances of oppressed peoples, especially via Pan-Islamist and communist networks (Ng, 2021). Hatta, however, adopted a more accommodative approach to the international system. While he acknowledged global inequalities, he prioritized dialogue and mutual accommodation between the North and South, characterized by mutual respect and to the benefit of the Indonesian people (Hatta 1953). For Hatta, internationalism was about peaceful cooperation that safeguarded national sovereignty.

if anyone wants the article since it isn’t open access, suggest a website that I can upload the file on and ill update the post.

The issue isn’t only fertilizers at the farm-level. It’s that the entire current food-system and supply chain is based heavily on petroleum and the derivatives.

[Source]:

Some examples of off-farm energy consumption in the food system include:

Processing. In the United States, heating (59%) and cooling (16%) for preservation and storage are the two major consumers of energy in food processing (Corigliano and Algieri, 2024).

Transportation. Globally, transport accounts for around 19% of food system greenhouse gas emissions (Li et al., 2022). This can be considered as a proxy for energy use. This supports the distribution of an estimated 22.2 trillion tonne kilometers (tkm – a tkm is the movement of one tonne of goods one kilometer) of food produce per year.

Packaging. Plastic is responsible for more than 10% of total life cycle energy for the majority of the 30 food products surveyed by Kan and Miller (2022) whilst for seven foods (raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, carbonated drinks, almond milk, olive oil, and bottled water), plastic packaging is responsible for 20% of total energy use. Plastics are predominantly derived from the byproducts of refining petroleum and natural gas.

In a review of global datasets, Rasul et al in Energy input and food output: The energy imbalance across regional agrifood systems, that agro-food systems in the West, namely Europe, North America and Australia, have EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Input) is below 0. That means more energy is needed to be put in then we get out.

This compares to most Asian agro-food systems, who have values larger than 1, due to numerous reasons of course, which includes still the present heavy labour-intensive agricultural activity, lower meat and animal byproduct consumption, and higher consumption of local produce, but the obvious being the longer frost-free periods and higher bioproductivity found in the tropics due to higher evapotranspiration rates and accelerated cycles.

So the absolute irony is of course that right now most of Europe and the US is decrying of inefficient industrial subsidies in China that “distorts markets”, but the collective West has the most inefficient subsidy programme on Earth: their agriculture industry.

This corroborate what Patnaik and Patnaik pointed out in their book Theory of Imperialism, in which food production despite technological (or perhaps because of) is still heavily dependent on the Tropics due to simple Geography, refuting David Harvey’s weak refutes on environmental determinism. Western’s strangling of global South economies is literally starving the world. Perpetual underdevelopment of the Global South will lead to continual Global food scarcity and insecurity.

Global South agriculture, even at it’s excess, still is a net producer of energy - it produces more than it consumes, particularly in Africa and Asia, and it is continuously increasing this net surplus (I suspect is mostly due to China’s innovations and some level of industrialization and advancements in technology that has occurred throughout the continent).

So besides what certain Western based NGOs argue, there is still a deep question on not only redistribution of current existing food resources, but also there is still a need in building the technological and knowledge-base for which a truly sustainable food system can take place, which the Global South desperately needs.

Mainly just a statistically base year effect from last year’s dip.

The April reading was helped by a fading low-base effect due to electricity tariff discounts early last year that affected inflation in previous months

Article

MoM change is at +0.1%. Indonesia is a net energy exporter (aided mainly by coal), but imports vasts amount of crude oil and petroleum products.

South-east Asian economies struggle to counter energy shock

The funny bit here is the article as per usual only focuses on monetary policy as means to control inflation but the reality is the government can still do a lot more in a crisis situation. In fact, it is in a crisis situation that enables governments to enact more radical measures they otherwise would not be able to.

Take Malaysia’s case - right now there’s a debate in the UK about price caps in supermarkets. Malaysia has had price controls since 1970s and has now expanded to include many essential goods. Furthermore, the government has invested in supply-side interventions, through fuel and fertiliser subsidies and improving agricultural production through automation. Consumption subsidies through cash handouts have also been routinely employed. The government has also re-introduced an intiative of a previous administration of government-run grocery stores (although a bit liberalized now with PPP initiatives) and food markets. Not to say everything’s perfect, but the government can obviously do a lot.

In fact the deputy minister of Economy recently talked about how fuel subsidies are being used as a demand management mechanism.

So despite Malaysia’s high exposure through global trade flows, increasing risk premiums in maritime shipping and the obvious supply shock, the government has took a lot of measures to make it more or less manageable at the point of impact to people as seen in the CPI, with the most notable part of the basket impacted being logistics and fuel.

Medium to long term a hypothetical country should obviously focus on investments in electrification and pursuing renewable, nuclear and alternative fuel sources (biofuels namely). Again in Malaysia’s case this is done through mobilising the massive GLCs and GLICs and other state-linked corporations like the national energy company Tenaga Nasional or integrated O&G operator Petronas.

So in the UK’s case it means nationalizing every strategic enterprise and of course government spending (in production) but it remains to be seen if the UK will be able to move beyond it’s imperial hangover of 50+ years and actually start recognising present realities.

Asian Boss - Why Singaporeans Are Fleeing to Malaysia every Weekend

Overall the video does give vital information on certain dynamics of JB-Singapore, but it fails to see the larger view beyond just border security and housing. Or rather, it does not emphasise what makes the dynamics now different from decades ago. Anyone can easily say that JB and SG are from two different worlds, the question now is what makes current conditions different.

It reflects a structural reality in which headline numbers simply does not give it justice. There is in fact convergence of the economic trajectories of Malaysia’s southern tip and Singapore. Anyone who knows the history would know that this was what the historical Left wanted but couldn’t actually put into practice. Because Singapore’s position in the Straits Settlements, the crown colony trade entrepot had material relations vastly different to the Malayan hinterlands, which were characterised by owner-middlemen-plantation worker and feudal-peasant-village dynamics as opposed to the metropolitan, colonizer-worker-capitalist struggles in Singapore. But in the new Century, economics is again the final decider, and what may finally unite the two countries.

Norway confirms decision to revoke missile licences for Malaysia, cites stricter export controls

The Norwegian foreign ministry said its decision was shaped by evolving security conditions in Europe and around the world

Anwar finding out the perfidiousness of the Europeans in real-time.

Full post by Anwar:

I conveyed Malaysia’s vehement objection in a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre regarding Norway’s unilateral and unacceptable decision to revoke the export licence for the Naval Strike Missile (NSM) system and its associated launcher systems, ostensibly to protect Norway’s security.

Malaysia has honoured every obligation under this contract since 2018: scrupulously, faithfully and without equivocation. Norway, it appears, has not felt compelled to extend us the same courtesy and demonstration of good faith.

I made it plain that this decision will have grave consequences for Malaysia’s defence operational readiness and the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) modernisation programme. It will undoubtedly carry broader ramifications for the regional balance.

Signed contracts are solemn instruments. They are not confetti to be scattered in so capricious a manner. If European defence suppliers reserve the right to renege with impunity, their value as strategic partners flies out the window.