Category Archives: Asia

Asia, China, Foreign Policy

The Malay Annals: History Describes the Present

The Malay Annals, or “Sejarah Melayu” in Malay, are a romanticized history on the rise and fall of the Malaccan Sultanate interspersed with mythical and fantastical elements. To put the text in historical context, it was composed approximately a century after the fall of the Malaccan sultanate, marking the end of the sultanate’s undisputed rule over both sides of the Strait of Malacca. The oldest version is dated approximately two centuries after the end of the Ming Dynasty’s short-lived maritime Pax Sinica that extended from East Asia to the tip of the Indian sub-continent.

Within its text are key passages describing the Malay worldview of their relationship with the Sinic empires, specifically the Ming dynasty. The interactions cited within afford a remarkably contemporary frame of Malaysia’s current foreign policy towards China, its status as regional power and an emerging superpower, as well as Beijing’s claims towards almost the entirety of South China Sea. Selected texts from the Malay Annals reproduced in this article are drawn from Dr. John Leyden’s translation published in 1821 and are presented in the order as they appear in the Leyden manuscript.

“Sit atop the mountain and watch the tigers fight” – Chinese saying

Then, it was reported in the land of China, that Raja Suran was advancing against them with an innumerable army, and had arrived at the country of Tamsak. The raja of China was alarmed at hearing this intelligence, and said to his mantris and chieftains, “If Kling Raja approach, the country will be inevitably ruined; what method do you advise to prevent his approach?” Then, a sagacious mantri of China said, “Lord of the world, your slave will fall on a device.”

King Suran is described in the text as a true descendant of Alexander the Great. At this point, there is no mention yet of the Malays or Malay lands, only that King Suran set forth from India intending to conquer China. The king of China, upon learning of King Suran’s approach, appreciated this new danger and consulted with his court. One of his ministers contrived a plan to deceive King Suran regarding the distance of China from India with the use of rusty needles and aging sailors. The ruse succeeded in deterring King Suran from invading China.

What is striking is that the Malaccan sultanate perceived the need for another great power to balance and counter the hegemony of the Ming dynasty. When the Trump administration recently announced that the U.S. explicitly considers the PRC’s territorial claims in South China Sea as illegal, it merely elicited a decidedly neutral statement couched in non-committal language from Malaysia. Malaysia’s foreign minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, stated, “Malaysia looks forward to continuing the discussions to conclude an effective and substantive Code of Conduct in the South China Sea that would encompass elements which reflect the rights and interests of all parties.”

It should be noted that Malaysia conducts, with little to no domestic fanfare, far more bilateral military exercises of substance with the U.S. than with PRC. A recent standoff between China’s state-owned and military vessels with a Malaysian-chartered Panamanian-flagged drillship and several U.S. Navy ships did not even make the local news cycle in Malaysia. In other words, while Malaysia may loudly proclaim strict neutrality or assign tensions solely to ambitions of superpowers, at best, Putrajaya, the seat of Malaysia’s federal-level government ministries, quietly aspires for U.S. alone to do the heavy lifting. At worst, it hopes that an American presence gives considerable pause to China’s assertive ambitions, sans a hint of Malaysian participation.

“That’s the way the cookie crumbles” – American saying

Then the raja of China sent to Palembang, to Raja Sangsapurba ten prows, to ask his daughter in marriage. They brought with them as presents three bahars of gold, and a great quantity of articles of China. Along with them one hundred male Chinese slaves, and a young Chinese of noble birth; a hundred female Chineses; all to convey the raja’s letter to Sangsapurba. They reached Palembang, and delivered the letter of the raja of China, in the most respectful manner, in the hall of audience.

King Sangsapurba is represented by the Malay Annals as the first Malay king who also laid claim as a direct descendant of Alexander the Great. His appearance in the Annals suggests that the Malays drew heavily from Hindu cosmology (Shiva possibly) in that he was hinted as a sort of demi-god, being deigned to descend from the heavens in order to rule over the Malays. Upon receiving the proposal for the hand of his daughter from the king of China, Sangsapurba consulted with his retinue. They concurred that Palembang, Sangsapurba’s capital, would be at great risk should the proposal be refused and, at the same time, counseled that there was no greater king than the king of China.

While there are historical accounts of Chinese vessels operating around Malay territory for centuries, it would be Zheng He’s famous treasure fleets that would leave an indelible mark and distinct impression on the Malaccan sultanate. The above passage informs readers that the sultanate was more than aware of the proximity of the Chinese mainland to Malacca. Additionally, with the appearance of several large multi-masted ships crewed by hundreds, the Malaccan sultanate understood that the fiat of the Ming Dynasty would not, and could not, be denied. Thus, the Ming dynasty records duly noted visits by Parameswara, the founder of the Malaccan sultanate, and later of his successor, to the Ming capital to receive gifts from the Ming emperor as acknowledgment of their legitimacy as rulers of the Malacca city-state.

Translated today, Malaysia would unlikely initiate or risk direct action to contest incursions by China’s Coast Guard or the People’s Liberation Army Navy into Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Unlike Vietnam, which could fall back on a long history of resisting Chinese invasion and occupation to rally its people in the face of overwhelming numbers and odds, Putrajaya seems to accept that it would likely be fruitless to contest regular incursions by China. Dr. Mahathir Mohammad, then speaking as prime minister, affirmed the long-held precept in late 2019 during an interview discussing China’s maritime claims, saying, “We watch what they are doing, we report what they are doing, but we do not chase them away or try to be aggressive.”

“The measure of clothing against yourself” – Malay saying

The sago was then brought before the raja, and the raja of China asked how it was made. Tun Parapati Puti replied that it was made by rolling it up into grains, and that the raja of Malacca had sent him a grain for every person in his dominions, till the prahu had been loaded, for so great is the number of the subjects of our raja that it is impossible to count them. The raja of China said, “of a truth the raja of Malacca is a powerful raja, his subjects are in truth very numerous, and no wise inferior to mine. It will be very proper for me to connect myself with him.”

The Malaccan sultanate would not have easily accepted the conceit of being in the thrall of the Ming dynasty. The above passage indicates that the sultanate sought a level footing as either an equal or a near-peer to the Ming dynasty. It may have likely been aimed at placating the domestic audiences within the palace, seeing that as it was successive Malaccan rulers that regularly paid court to the Ming emperor rather than the other way around. Unsurprisingly, the above passage cites the marriage of the “Ming princess” Han Li-Po to Sultan Mansur Shah of Malacca as a mark of high esteem by the king of China.

The annals also describe an unusual event which further buttresses the Sultanate’s desire for equality or near-peer status. Shortly after the above passage, the text reveals that the king of China was “seized with an itch of the whole body”. Upon consultation, it was discovered that this itch could only be cured by “drinking the water which has washed the feet and face of the raja of Malacca.” An emissary was dispatched from China to the Malaccan court to apply for said healing waters. The bodily itch subsided after it was applied as prescribed. The king of China pledged that the king of Malacca would no longer be required to pay obeisance at the Chinese court thanks to this miraculous cure. In this, the third and final leg of Malaysia’s diplomatic stance towards China is revealed.

So long as China is willing to acknowledge or publicly confer a near-peer status to Malaysia, “give face”, and support inconsequential initiatives sponsored by Putrajaya, the latter will not rock the boat. Former Malaysian foreign minister, Saifuddin Abdullah, reiterated the point in late 2019, citing that bilateral ties were that of “friendship based on civilization”. It is not a new stance and was first iterated by Malaysia’s second prime minister Tun Razak in 1974, who followed in the wake of Nixon’s ground-breaking visit in 1972, by stating Malaysia’s ancient ties with China. On a more cautionary note, this story from the Malay Annals may not bode well for Malaysia’s Sinic minority should future events transpire that are detrimental towards Malaysia’s maritime claims.

“It’s the same ol’, same ol’ situation” – Motley Crue

To place the historical context of the Malay Annals in modern perspective, at the peak of Pax Sinica under the Ming dynasty, Zheng He’s treasure fleet carried out counterpiracy operations near Palembang, Sumatra, and instituted regime change in Colombo, present-day Sri Lanka. Just as it was then and today, a superpower’s reach that meddled in regional politics and exuding a somewhat condescending attitude would have likely triggered internal resentments that needed to be addressed or tamped down in favor of expediently and profitably managing their kingdoms’ generally unequal relationship with the Ming dynasty. The encounter between the Ming dynasty and Malaccan sultanate resulted in a foreign policy primer encapsulated by these key passages in a classical Malay text that is still assiduously cultivated by modern-day Malaysian diplomats and public officials.

Teoh Jit Khiam works in private practice. He writes on topics concerning Asian politics and history.

Asia, China, Foreign Policy, Politics

What the End of One Country, Two Systems Means for Hong Kong, Taiwan and the World

This article has been republished with permission from our partner, Stratfor. The original version was first published in Stratfor’s WORLDVIEW and can be found here.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Beijing’s decision to impose a long-delayed security law on Hong Kong reflects the mainland’s growing concern with challenges to national unity.
  • Hong Kong will face an acceleration of reintegration, and a more rapid erosion of its special status, while Taiwan will face increased economic and military pressure from the mainland.
  • China will use its political, economic and, if need be, military might to assert its sovereignty over its periphery, including Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Beijing’s decision to impose a long-delayed security law on Hong Kong reflects the mainland’s growing concern with challenges to national unity ahead of next year’s 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. But it is more immediately driven by the rising violence in Hong Kong and the political evolution in Taiwan. Despite international criticism, China will strengthen efforts to fully integrate Hong Kong and to further isolate Taiwan internationally.

The issues of Hong Kong and Taiwan are intimately linked for Beijing. Hong Kong was intended to be a model of effective unification under one country, two systems, to entice Taiwan to rejoin the motherland and bring to fruition the post-World War II rebuilding of China. But Hong Kong’s integration has grown increasingly fractious over the past decade, and this has reinforced sentiment in Taiwan that reintegration with China would see a similar erosion of Taiwan’s political and social structures.

With Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s reelection in January, driven in part by the Hong Kong protests, Beijing is aware that there is little support left in Taiwan for reintegration with the mainland. Rather, Taiwanese politics now splits between pro-status quo and pro-independence ideas. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought Taiwan’s international status back to the forefront, with countries from the United States to Australia arguing in favor of increasing Taiwanese participation in International forums like the World Health Organization, something strenuously objected to by Beijing.

The issues of Hong Kong and Taiwan are intimately linked for Beijing: Hong Kong was intended to be a model of effective unification to entice Taiwan to rejoin the motherland.

The 2019 protesters in Hong Kong rallied around five key demands, essentially insisting on self-determination for Hong Kong. This was clearly something on which Beijing would not yield. As protests continued, elements within the movement grew more violent, with some using improvised explosives, something Beijing fears Hong Kong security forces cannot fully manage. The combination of the college break and the social restrictions implemented due to the COVID-19 crisis eased the protests, but the Chinese National People’s Congress’ decision to take up the security law reignited them. While these protests were small, they demonstrated a growing willingness to challenge Hong Kong’s restrictions on gatherings and foreshadowed another summer of regular protest activity leading up to legislative elections in September.

The security law was supposed to be something Hong Kong itself passed following the 1997 handover from the United Kingdom, but domestic opposition delayed concrete action. Beijing has now stepped in to provide the legal tools to counter separatism, terrorism or intentional economic upheaval. The law will also provide a mechanism for Chinese agencies to operate directly in Hong Kong. The timing coincides with a delayed vote in Hong Kong later this week on a bill that would outlaw parodying or disrespecting the Chinese national anthem, another measure generating ire among Hong Kong protesters.

In the past year, China has grown more assertive in its international diplomacy, lashing out at anything it considers a challenge to Chinese national unity or criticism of Chinese actions. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated already-tense exchanges between China and several Western countries, but despite criticism and threats of political and economic sanctions, Beijing remains undeterred. The 100th anniversary of the CCP is an important piece of China’s narrative to reinforce Chinese nationalism and challenge what it sees as an outdated and unfair Western world order.

With rising international efforts to constrain China’s economic and political rise, Beijing cannot allow Hong Kong, a Chinese city, to remain a challenge to central authority. The politics of one country, two systems no longer resonate, and leaving Hong Kong to its own devices no longer aids China’s Taiwan policy. For Hong Kong, this means an acceleration of reintegration, and a more rapid erosion of special status — something that will likely trigger a further acceleration of corporate diversification or relocation from Hong Kong, challenging its status as a financial center. For Taiwan, it means increased economic and military pressure from the mainland. And for the world, it means China will use its political, economic and, if need be, military might to assert its sovereignty over its periphery, including Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Rodger Baker is the Senior VP of Strategic Analysis at Stratfor. He leads Stratfor’s strategic thinking on global issues and future trends.

Asia, China, Politics

Taiwan: Between a ROC and a Hard Place

Taiwan is currently in the midst of an identity crisis. The island nation desires to retain its official Republic of China (ROC) designation while half-heartedly nursing an unconsummated claim to the mainland. Instead, it is relegated to the status of “Chinese Taipei.” This diplomatic ambiguity does the island-state no favors in coaxing, much less obtaining, formal recognition as a sovereign country. It does even less to distinguish Taiwan, at least in diplomatic terms, from mainland China. To be sure, the thought of coexisting side-by-side with another Sinic-based polity is nigh heresy in Beijing. There is probably no higher political transgression than to loudly entertain the very idea of an independent Taiwan within Zhongnanhai, the headquarters for the Communist Party of China (CPC), which also serves as China’s central government.

Taipei squandered the opportunity to break free of the cross-strait ambiguity in 1989 at the height of the June crackdown by Beijing when Western powers and China’s citizens recoiled from the death toll and sheer violence unleashed at Tiananmen Square. Had Taipei formally declared independence then and there, it would have established a credible precedent. Though the move was unlikely to garner immediate recognition, Beijing would not have been able to overturn it without risking further internal instability or throwing an ill-equipped conscripted army into a complex cross-strait invasion. Today, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is a far cry from its Maoist iteration of the past, and China’s citizens are mainly in line with an ethnocentric-based nationalism that was mostly absent during the Mao and Deng years.

There is But One China 

Half of this problem lies in Taiwan’s retention of the moniker Republic of China and its widely ignored, but constitutional, claim to the mainland. Both are legacies bequeathed to Taiwan by Chiang Kai-shek, who himself aspired to rule over a unified China. Both remain points of contention on the international stage. Additionally, the CPC threatened a kinetic form of “Chinese Reunification” after Taiwanese “desinicization” (sic) efforts. Thus, while denied use of “ROC” outside of Taiwan, its official existence and unresolved mainland claim indirectly serve Zhongnanhai’s narrative — at least for its domestic audiences — that the peoples on both sides of the strait yearn for “reunification.”

Repudiating both would buttress Taiwan’s position as standing apart from China rather than being perceived as a failed pretender for the throne. The present uncrowned King of Greece is a royal consort to the British Queen, a gentle fate to be sure. Trotsky suffered far worse: an icepick to the head. And it conforms with the first leg of the Shanghai Communiqué by resolving Kissinger’s “constructive ambiguity” that there is but one China. It is this re-framing of perspective that Zhongnanhai possibly fears more than a formal declaration of independence bearing the name “ROC.”

Mandate of Heaven

Repeated questioning – or is it discrediting? – of CPC’s one-party rule via the simplistic narrative of “Communism vs. democracy” does Taiwan no favors. While it might score points with pundits and politicians in the U.S. and Europe, it has by far failed to secure formal recognition from governments there. And how does one ascertain legitimacy without a ballot? The fact that more than a billion Chinese citizens pay taxes with and save in renminbi emblazoned with Mao’s face, strongly suggests they deem CPC to be “legitimate” for practical purposes. And what is money but, as Geoffrey Ingham of Cambridge University advocates, “a system of social relations based on power relations and social norms”? It can be argued the moment Germans burnt reichsmarks for heating or used them as wallpaper, marked the beginning of the end for the Weimar Republic and heralded the ascendancy of Adolf Hitler. Such a shift has yet to take place on the Mainland.

Some would argue that Taipei should ungrudgingly acknowledge the CPC’s mainland legitimacy under the “Mandate of Heaven”, a political justification used since ancient times to justify the rise or fall of Chinese emperors. It was even enthusiastically adopted by foreign conquerors such as the Mongols and the Manchus that established the Yuan and Qing dynasties, respectively.

Recalling the titular characters romanticized in the famous Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Taiwan is somewhat reminiscent of Liu Bei in his opposition to Cao Cao. The former, a warlord claimant to the imperial throne and a supposed heir to the Han dynasty circa 1-2 CE, contended with the latter who controlled the emperor Xian of the eastern Han dynasty. Present-day Liu Bei, rather than emulate his historical predecessor, should instead render unto Cao Cao what is Cao Cao’s.

Contrasting the “Mandate of Heaven” rule with pluralistic political participation, which denies such divine intercession, would serve better in advancing the cause for a separate, yet distinct, Sinic-based polity. Taiwan’s recent success at averting the coronavirus pandemic, sans WHO membership or a highly centralized rule enabling mass mobilization with minimal resistance, merely affirms such.

Taiwan, in the long run, cannot expect other countries to buy into its present stance when it cannot convince itself, much less its audience across the strait, that an independent Taiwan is not merely an “old wine in a new bottle”. Otherwise, Taipei would do better to negotiate a far less ambiguous future under “One Country, Two Systems”. Ultimately, a raison d’etre for independence would first necessitate the cognitive deportation of the highly monolithic Chinese philosophical and political worldview, mainly colored by Confucius and Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of unified China, back to the mainland where it truly belongs.

Teoh Jit Khiam works in private practice. He writes on topics concerning Asian politics and history.