Essay on Malaysia: Read An Outstanding Essay on Malaysia

Malaysia is a nation of two parts: West Ma­laysia, the peninsular part on the mainland bounded on the north by Thailand; and East Malaysia on the western coast of the island of Borneo. Between these two parts lie 400 miles (645 km) of South China Sea that gives the country an oddly dislocated appearance on the map. With an area of 127,584 sq. miles (330,442 sq. km), it is a lit­tle larger than Great Britain which formerly ruled it.

Malaysia represents the political union of the territories under British rule that included Malaya on the peninsular part on the mainland Southeast Asia, the island of Singapore, and the states of Sarawak and Sabah on the island of Bor­neo. Malaya became independent in 1957, and in 1963 it joined with Sarawak and Sabah, and Singapore in creating the new nation of Malaysia.

Singapore withdrew from the federation in 1965 and became an independent republic. The Sarawak and Sabah unit was officially named East Ma­laysia which covers about 60 percent of Malaysia’s land area, although less than 15 percent of Malaysia’s 23 million people live there. East Malaysia shares a land boundary with Indonesia’s Kalimantan province.

Physical Environment:

West Malaysia has a mountainous core, with hills aligned in a north-south direction; the most prominent range rises to elevations of 7,200 feet (2,190 meters). The peripheral U-shaped coastal plains and lowlands, 10 to 50 miles (16 to 18 km) wide along the west coast and narrower and discontinu­ous along the east coast, surround the highland core.

The coastline is over 1,200 miles (1,920 km) in length, and is mostly lined with mangrove swamps. East Malay­sia also has a mountainous interior, with the usual swampy coastal plain of 10 to 40 miles wide. Sabah’s coastline is rugged and indented, while that of Sarawak’s com­paratively more regular. The mountainous eastern boundary forms the divide be­tween East Malaysia and Indonesia.

Both East Malaysia and West Malaysia are cov­ered with tropical evergreen rain forest, although that of East Malaysia is far more extensive than that of West Malaysia; in­deed, these forests make up the largest tract of untouched rainforests in Southeast Asia. In West Malaysia, the unbroken for­est is confined to the central mountain region. At lower elevations, stretches of jungle are interspersed with villages sur­rounded by rice fields, with plantations of rubber estates and settlements.

West Malaysia is located between 2° and 6° north latitude and most of the land is less than 100 miles (160 km) from the sea. It has an equatorial climate charac­terized by uniformly high temperatures averaging 78°F to 82°F (25° to 28°C), and by over 80 inches (2,000 millimeters) of an­nual rainfall. All of Malaysia is frost-free.

Climatic conditions in East Malaysia are quite similar to those prevailing in West Malaysia, but the range of seasonal tem­peratures and the amount of annual precipitation are greater in East Malaysia. The soils of both East and West Malaysia have been exposed for a long period of time to intense tropical weathering and have been leached out and are poorer ex­cept for small areas along the coast. Only Sabah has some areas of fertile soil near the rivers.

Cultural and Historical Factors:

Malaysia, like its neighboring nations, has a rich and diverse ethnic mix, but is unique in that its predominant Malay group has been in an uncomfortable minority until recently. In addition to its various indige­nous groups, it also accommodates Chinese and Indian populations large enough to make the Malays a slim majority in their native land.

In combination with other na­tive inhabitants—know, like them, as Bumiputras, “sons of the soil”—the Malays make up a modest majority of 58 percent. Chinese account for about 25.4 percent, and Indians close to 7.2 percent of the population. This uneasy mix of races causes occasional bitter conflicts, and often dictates all political, social and economic calculations in the country.

Until the middle of the 19th century the country remained a rural, feudal Malay society. Malays were landowners, and peasant agriculturists. The picture changed dramatically when tin became a major item in international commerce and the tin mines of Malaysia proved of great value.

The Malays, who themselves did not engage in industry, encouraged Chinese and Europeans to operate tin mines and to import large numbers of Chinese laborers from Southern China to work in the mines. Initially, living in large unassimi­lated communities, these organized several secret societies, and fought among them­selves and the mine owners, often ignoring local laws.

These societies became en­trenched in the towns, posing a threat to the native Malays. The Malaysian ethnic composition was further compounded when, at the turn of the century, Tamil la­borers in vast numbers from India were imported by the British rulers and estate holders to work on rubber plantations. In 1920 Malayan rubber production ac­counted for 53 percent of the world’s total production.

The importation of Chinese and Indian labor was originally welcomed by the Malays as it did not compete with the Malay economic structure but pro­duced new wealth from tin mines and rubber plantations. However, political problems arose when the combined Chi­nese and Indian populations exceeded that of the Malays and when the Chinese and Indians were not allowed landowning rights, they slowly branched out into sev­eral commercial and business enterprises.

They are now found in large numbers in cities throughout the nation and some parts of the countryside as well. They are especially concentrated on the densely populated western flank of the Malayan peninsula. Indeed, the ethnic mix in the small towns in these parts makes them mi­crocosms of the nation.

In addition to the Malays, Chinese, In­dians, and the aborigines, small numbers of Europeans, Americans, Thailand Arabs are residents in Malaysia—a reflection of the crossroads location of the Malay Peninsula and a meeting place for peoples from other parts of Asia.

The aborigines (Orang Asli) contain several groups, some of which speak Malay and related languages but oth­ers speak Mon-Khmer languages. They are primarily adherents of traditional religions, although many have been converted to Islam. The Malays speak Malay, an Aus­tronesian language (officially called Bahasa Malaysia) which is the national language, and is related to the languages spoken in Indonesia.

They are overwhelmingly Mus­lim. Adherence to Islam generally distinguishes a Malay from a non-Malay; the number of Malays who are not Mus­lim is negligible. The Chinese are less homogeneous than the Malays in language and religion. They speak several dialects (Cantonese, Hakkai, and Hainanese) re­flecting the region of their origins in China. In general, they do not follow a dominant religion, and most of them, while subscribing to Confucian faith, are either Buddhist or Taoist. A small minority is that of Christians.

The peoples from South Asia—Indi­ans, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans, commonly- grouped as Indians—can linguistically be divided into speakers of Dravidian lan­guages (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam) and speakers of Indo-European languages (Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, and Sin­halese). Most of the Indians and Sri Lankans are Hindus, while the Pakistanis are Muslims. The Sikhs from the Punjab portion of India adhere to their own relig­ion, Sikhism.

The Ethnic-linguistic composition of East Malaya is even more complex. The main ethnic groups in Sarawak are: Chi­nese, Malays and the several aboriginal tribesmen including the Dayaks, all adding racial, linguistic and ethnic heterogeneity to the cultural scene. Sabah, even more than Sarawak has a kaleidoscopic mixture of peoples.

The largest groups consist of the aborigines, while a small proportion includes Malays, Indonesians, Filipinos, Europeans and South Asians. A great num­ber of aborigines are animists, and a small number of them have been converted to Is­lam or Christianity. Most of them are shifting cultivators. Although they are di­vided into sub-tribes, their languages are mutually intelligible.

The Chinese have been a special irri­tant in Malaysian political and economic structure. The Malays and Chinese differ culturally and economically. Most Malays speak Malay, the official national language, which is taught in the schools along with English, while Chinese mostly adhere to their own dialects, while frequently using English. Many Chinese have resisted learn­ing Malay, even as a third language.

Malays are Muslims, while the Chinese are Bud­dhists, Confucianists or Taoists. As elsewhere, dislike of Chinese is fueled by the fact that they control most commerce. Although each nationality practices its own tradition with respect to foods, festi­vals, music, art and architecture, Malays own most of the land and control most governmental posts. Numerically less sig­nificant than Chinese, are the Indians who are less assertive, and are rarely involved in the occasional racial conflicts.

When the British controlled the country, they awarded “special privileges” to the Malays in terms of landowning rights, access to jobs in the civil service, recognition of Ma­lay as the national language, and designation of Islam as the state religion. After independence in 1957, racial antago­nisms surfaced during the early 1960s leading to serious race riots in 1969. De­spite the Malaysian administration’s efforts to pursue policies conducive to the devel­opment of national unity during the late 1970s and early 1980s, a true Malaysian na­tionalism has thus far failed to emerge.

Resources and Development:

Malaysia is rich in mineral resources. Its major me­tallic ores are tin, bauxite (aluminum), copper, and iron. The most valuable one is that of tin; minor ones include manganese, mercury, antimony, and gold. Tin mining is concentrated largely in the alluvial de­posits along the western slopes of the Main Range in West Malaysia, with smaller de­posits on the east coast.

While a good part of the country’s development effort was spent on the production of tin until the 1980’s, Malaysia’s most valuable mineral resources now are its reserves of petroleum and natural gas, although modest by world standard, are likely to grow. The major fields are all offshore, along the east coast of West Malaysia and Sarawak. Malaysia,
in addition, contains considerable reserves of coal, peat, wood, and has a large poten­tial for the development of hydro- electricity.

Since 1970, agriculture, fishing and for­estry, the traditional basis of the economy, have been declining in importance. Their contribution to the national product has gone down from one-third in 1970 to less than one-fifth, although a large part of the workforce is still engaged in these activi­ties.

Rice, the primary food crop, is grown on small farms. The total production is nearly two million tons. The production has declined a little during the last decade, primarily due to loss of farm labor to growing urban manufacturing sectors. As a result, the country which has been until the late 1980s, self-sufficient in rice produc­tion, has to make up the shortfall with imports chiefly from Thailand. Food items (rice being the major one) accounted for over 5 percent of Malaysia’s imports in the mid-1990s.

Traditionally, the most important cash crops have been palm oil and rubber, but their proportion to Malaysia’s exports de­clined considerably during the 1980s and 1990s, resulting primarily from the unpre­dictable fluctuations in the price of these commodities in the world market. This has also resulted in a decline in the number of plantations.

Malaysia is still the world’s largest producer of natural rubber, and in normal years produces 35-40 percent of the world’s output. Most of the plantations are in the coastal and piedmont zone of West Malaysia and primarily in Chinese and European hands, although the European ownership has considerably declined since independence.

Palm oil has become a more important commodity than rubber in terms of value and contributes signifi­cantly to the exports in the category of vegetable oils. Cocoa, pepper, and coco­nuts are other valuable crops raised.

Malaysia’s export structure has changed dramatically since 1970, from the one dominated by rubber and tin to one in which manufactured items account for most of the export earnings. Electrical and electronic products, transport equipment, and machinery and other manufactured goods have replaced the traditional com­modity goods as major exports.

Its chief trading partners are Japan, Singapore and the United States. The newly industrial­ized Asian nations such as South Korea and Taiwan account for a growing share of its foreign trade. The transportation sys­tem has improved substantially since independence; although more attention has been received by the Peninsular Malay­sia than East Malaysia. The nation has enjoyed a favorable balance of trade consis­tently for the past several decades.

In all Malaysia has a railroad track of only 2,222 km, but the total length of the paved roads is more extensive (nearly 70,000 km). The road network in East Ma­laysia is much smaller and river transport is of greater importance, especially in Sarawak. All the best ports such as George Town and Port-Kelang are along the west coast of West Malaysia. A new port of Kuantan has been developed on the east­ern coast of the Peninsula.

The Kuching in Sarawak and Kota Kinabalu in Sabah serve East Malaysia. Since independence air transport has grown rapidly in West Malaya. Kuala Lumpur (1.1 million) in West Malaysia is the nation’s capital and the chief inland city, served by Port Kelang on the Strait of Malacca. Apart from Its administrative functions, it is the country’s most important commercial cen­ter of tin-mining and rubber production industry.

Founded by the Chinese tin-mining in 1957, it became the capital of the Federated Malay States under the British in 1896, and was named the national capital when Malaysia gained freedom in 1957. Among the notable buildings that adorn the city is the modern Parliament building in Moorish style.

The move to industrialize has left only a fifth of all Malaysians still on the land, the remaining have taken to professional, commercial, and other jobs. The nation, however, feels hampered in its drive to in­dustrialize by its small population base. It is encouraging procreation and a large fam­ily size in order to create a bigger domestic market and a larger labor force.

Admini­stration’s exhortations to women to raise more children, however, make the Chi­nese and Indians uneasy, as most Malays remain largely rural and tend to rear larger families. Any future increase in population is likely to push the proportion of Malays well above the 50 percent mark, making them an absolute majority.

Prospects:

Malaysia enjoys the highest standard of living in Southeast Asia with the exception of the such smaller countries as Brunei and Singapore. During the last decade its economy has recorded impres­sive growth rates averaging 8-9 percent annually. Since independence the admini­stration has pursued calculated policy of economic diversification.

An increasingly large slice of the government’s develop­mental effort has been devoted to heavy industrial projects, among them pig-iron production, shipyards, cement plants and engineering complexes. Malaysia is now making electronic components for export. Today, manufacturers bring in over a half of Malaysia’s export earnings, while petro­leum accounts for 8 percent of exports.

The main development goal of the admini­stration enunciated in its New Economic Policy (NEP) has been the manufacture of goods for export, with a lesser emphasis on import substitution. Industrial estates within free trade zones have been estab­lished in the less-developed parts of the country.