July 10, 2025 • 22 mins
Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister, turned 100 this week. Bloomberg Weekend Editor-at-Large Mishal Husain sat down with the veteran former leader for an interview in the offices of his foundation, just outside Kuala Lumpur.
Husain asked him about his thoughts on aging and leadership; what he thinks Donald Trump’s tariff war means for Malaysia; and what he sees as the way forward, in a world that’s getting more tense and divided by the day.
Read more: Mahathir Mohamad: Trump Is ‘Against the Whole World’
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm wan Ha and this is the Big Take Asia
from Bloomberg News. Today. On the show, an interview with
Mahathir Mohammed, Malaysia's longest serving prime minister. Michelle Hussein, an
editor at large from Bloomberg Weekend, sat down with mah
Their in the offices of his foundation just outside Kuala Lumpur.
Mah dear turned one hundred years old this week.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Michelle asked him about his thoughts on aging and leadership,
what he thinks Donald Trump's terra for means from Malaysia,
and what he sees as the way forward in a
world that's getting more tense and divided by the day.
Here's Michelle's edited conversation with former Malaysian Prime Minister mah
Tir Mohammed.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Doctor Marti, your political life has spanned more than six decades,
including a comeback to lead your country again at the
age of ninety two. In contrast, Joe Biden, a younger
man than you, was engulfed by debate about his fitness
to lead. What are your conclusions on age and leadership.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Well, if you don't get any faithal disease, you should
live quite a long time. Of course, you have to
have some discipline in your way of life. You do
not get fed, and you do some exercise and keep
your brain busy thinking, talking, discussing, writing, reading. You must
(01:40):
keep the brain active, otherwise the brain loses its capacity.
So A breaches all those things.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
How do you feel about being one hundred? How conscious
are you that you are the last of your generation?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
In many ways bid frightening? You know, it means that
you are very near, that you are well, you are normal,
and so as time passes, you feel you are coming
to an end. And that's not comfortable. You were is isa,
(02:23):
But then then you have to accept that this inevitable.
You have to go. So while you are still around,
you should do something and not just lie down in
bed and wad for the time.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And you're certainly proving that in how active you continue
to be, including in your public comments on age and leadership. Though,
are you saying age should be no barrier at all?
Because when you first left politics in two thousand and
three at seventy eight, you did think you were too
old to run for political office again.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah, well, I thought that age would affect my capability.
But I find out that is not necessarily in cape
stating if you are relatively healthy, you can function.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
But Joe Biden thought he was perfectly healthy, perfectly able.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Now, of course, some people age earlier. I believe in
working as a way of keeping the mind and body active,
and as you know, if you are not active, your
capectar shrinks is reduced.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Donald Trump, probably on this believes as you do. He
hasn't let age stand in his way.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Well, I think Donald Trump is relatively healthy, but his
attitude is the problem. He has this idea of making
America greed again, and to do that, he feels that
he has a confront the rest of the world, and
(04:07):
that is not a very good strategy.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Before we talk more about that, I want to go
back to your early life when the Japanese occupation began
during World War Two. What do you remember of that time.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Well, we were told that the Japanese were very cruel
people and they are prone to execute people, and naturally
we were very frightened. However, the Japanese when they came in,
they did single out the people who were against them,
(04:43):
mainly the Chinese who supported Chinese war against Japan. But
I was sorry the Chinese. I'm a Malay, and the
Genis have got no problem with malas a few Malays
who were also arrested and executi for things that they
have done. But generally the Japanese rule was not very desirable.
(05:11):
But on the other hand, they were not unduly.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Oppressive, except as you acknowledge if you were ethnic Chinese.
Those massacres by the Campetite, the Japanese secret police targeting
Chinese people, those were atrocities, weren't they. We should not
gloss over them.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
I'm not forgetting the wrong things that they did. But
the fact is that after the war they seem to
change completely. We cannot pull their past against them all
the time. If we keep on thinking about the past,
the conflicts of the past, and you are affected by this,
(05:54):
you cannot change to a better world.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
But also, it was economically imports possible, wasn't it for
a country like Malaysia to hold these things against Japan
because it was the dominant power in Asia. China was
nowhere economically at that point.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
We saw Japan as a good model of how a
country that was devastated by war was able to recover
in such a short period. And not only recover. At
one time there were number two in the world. We
thought that we should learn about it, we should copy,
and we should be able to achieve what they achieve.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Let's come to the present day then, and the current
reality since Donald Trump returned to the White House, the
atmosphere of trade tension and uncertainty. How would you say
Malaysia and the region Southeast Asia be affected?
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Well, you cannot help but be affected by drums policies.
He's against the whole world and to him, by raising
the tariff high, it will stop the goods from being imported.
But this is not a very good strategy because if
(07:27):
you reached the tariff on important goods, the cost of
those goods coming into your country will be very high.
And if those goods are required for your industries, like
components like microchips, the cost of your product would be higher.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Are you speaking from your own experience, Because there was
a time, indeed, for many years when Malaysia's economy was
built around tariffs on goods coming in and quotas, and
Malaysia had to reorient that model completely to try and
industrialize and become more of an export facing economy. So
(08:06):
if you were speaking directly to Donald Trump, What would
you say to him? How would you put this message
across in the punchiest terms.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
We tell him that he is wrong. He said, he
is wrong. He's going to damage America more than the
rest of the world. Of course, the rest of the
world will suffer, but America will suffer more because all
those industries which were set up by Americans outside of
(08:35):
America to take advantage of low course, those industries cannot
come back to America in the short time necessary. So
for some time America would still continue to import these
products with high tariffs.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And he might say to you, look at the way
all these countries, including Malaysia, are desperately negotiating with me
to try and get the tariffs down. He might well
take that as evidence that they are the ones who
are going to be badly affected, not America.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Yes, if the asport in the America, but the rest
of the world is not imposing high tariffs. So we
should increase our trade with the rest of the world.
With China, for example, we can increase our trade with China,
and to a certain assent, we can mitigate the effect
(09:32):
of Tim's high tariff by avoiding.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
America and selling more to China.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
And selling more to China and the rest of the world.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Does that have its own complexities? If you end up
closer to China economically, do you also end up closer
to China politically.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
The fact is that China is a neighbor has been
a neighbor of Malasia for the past almost two thousand year.
We have survived with China being a big power. But
theude of China is different than the edited at Europeans.
The Chinese may invade, but they do not colonize in
(10:15):
the Europeans. The Portuguese when they came here in fifteen
o nine, two years later they came and conquered us.
So we have lived with China all these years, and
we have to accept that China is a powerful nation.
We can't go to war against China. We have to
(10:35):
find somewhere of living with them.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
A powerful nation where ultimate control is with the Chinese
Communist Party, which is run on an authoritarian system and
which does destabilize its neighbors, which does make territorial claims,
as Malaysia itself has experienced in the South China Sea.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
China did not conquer Taiwan. They made use of Taiwan
to get technilogy and investment for China. The relationship was
all right because it's useful to China.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I'm not sure the Taiwanese will see it that way.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
The Chaiwanese have always been very close to China in
terms of investment, in terms of technology. Even the fact
is that if China wanted to, they could have evaded
Taiwan a long time ago. But did you you see?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I think if I talked to you in a previous
in a previous time, you would have been more forthright
about disputes like the Spratley Islands, which in the South
China Sea, which is one of those areas where Malaysias
had great difficulty with China. Today, you seem to be
taking a much more benign view. And I wonder is
(11:50):
that because of these realities that Southeast Asia is having
to make a choice and China is the choice that
is made.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Yeah. Well, China claims South china See belongs to China,
but that is their claim. We don't accept their claim.
In fact, although they claim South chenes See, they have
not taken action to show that this is their territory.
They have not stopped ships from passing through or examine
(12:24):
ships or impost restriction in the South China.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
But they do military exercises which create a lot of alarm,
live fire drills. These are not necessarily the actions of
a good and peaceful neighbor.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Well, when you send warships to South Chenan, see what
do you expect China to do?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
American warships? You mean yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And when you purposely make a visit to Taiwan and
told Taiwan that you will be invaded by.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
China, you mean Nanci Pelosis.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
When she went there for the good reason she went there,
and immediately after that, tension rules. And when tension rules,
then America says Taiwan, you must rearm and they had
wide weapons from America. So the tension has been increased
by that visit.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
In several parts of the world, we see not just
tension but outright conflict, whether it is Ukraine, Gaza, Israel,
and the United States recent strikes on Iran. You've seen
a lot in your time, including living through the Second
World War. What do you see as you look around
(13:55):
and see that level of conflict in the world.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
They will always be conflicts, but conflicts are not necessarily
resolved through confrontation through wars, you can negotiate, You can
even go to the workhord and get a decision. Now,
the rest of the world seems to think that any
conflicts should be resolved by war, and if there is confrontation,
(14:24):
you should provoke countries into active action, as happened with Russia.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
You see Ukraine as a provocation.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
You mean, yeah, there are many other countries which were
allied to Russia by word freed by Grover Shop. They
joined NATO. Russia did not object, But Ukraine has a
long border with Russia, and when Ukraine joints NATO, it
brings NATO right up to Russia. And naturally this is
(14:58):
not something Russia can accept.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
But as you've suggested, there are different ways to respond
to things. And annexing part of another country's territory as
Russia has done, crossing international borders to invade with tanks
as it did three years ago, Ukraine would say this
is a war for its survival. And in the Middle East,
(15:25):
Israel would say that it has acted in self defense
against Tamas.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
When a country is actively carrying our genocide and says
that Geno said is a way to defend this country,
that is not acceptable.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
What do you think then, of the Arab countries, Muslim
countries like the UAE and Bahrain, who in this entire
period have maintained their diplomatic relations with Israel.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Well, dear not unite that we have to accept the
fact that the Muslim countries are not united. Each has
got its own policies. But all these things sat when
Palestinian land was ceazed to make Israel.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Do you accept the idea of two states? Do you
accept Israel's right to exist as well as advocating for
Palestinian rights?
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Yeah, two states would be a good solution at this
moment because there is no way for the Arabs to
do away with Israel. Israel is there.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
May we come to the present day in Malaysia and
what you hope the country would become by the year
twenty twenty, a fully developed country. It was a goal
that you set back in nineteen ninety one and it
hasn't quite been achieved. What do you think of the
reasons for that.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
We were progressing very well. We had certain policies in place,
and the country was growing at a very high rate
seven percent eight percent every year GDP growth. But when
I stepped down. They decided to drop completely the policies
and the strategies that enable Malaysia to grow very fast.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I wonder, though, Dr Matteir, if you can take some
responsibility for the fact that Malaysia hasn't fully lived up
to what you hoped for. Take the idea of race
based affirmative action policies that privilege the ethnic Malay majority
your own community. It means privileged access to education, It
means discounts on housing. It means companies led by ethnic
(17:35):
Malay citizens have certain access and greater privilege. Is that
really the right thing to do in the twenty first
century in a country that should be a meritocracy.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Well, we learn from America. America introduced affirmative action to
help the blacks catch up with the whites. Here, we
feel the disparity with the Malays and Chinese is dangerous.
It is going to lead to confrontation, maybe violence. And
in fact, in nineteen sixty nine there were rich Rids
(18:13):
because the Malays generally were poor. After independence, the Chinese
were rich, and even politically, the Malay dominance was eroded
because of that. We feel that we should reduce the
disparity between rich and poor within Malaysia and Chinese. That
(18:36):
was why we adopted affirmative action.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
But it creates distortions, doesn't it. It has led to
a brain drain of talented ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indian
citizens who don't feel there's a level playing field. And
I think you yourself have said there will be a
time to withdraw these policies. Of course, politically they're very
hard to withdraw when parties need to win elections.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
When you introduce any policy, there will be people who
are not happy, people who are happy. Very few have
left Milasia, even those who have migrated to other countries,
retained their Malasian citizenship because they want to come back.
This is the country that they have been brought up
(19:23):
in and they feel that over time things would resolve.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
In your own life, amongst those you've known leaders across
the world, who did you admire, you were a contemporary
of le Kuwan News who made Singapore one of the
wealthiest nations in the world. Did you envy that?
Speaker 4 (19:44):
No? I think my idol is Nelson Mandela. I know
well his level hiddenness is something remarkable. Was the wounded
Asian leader who met him after he was relieved. I
was expecting him to be a very bitter man or
(20:04):
a broken man because he was in jail. He was not.
He was talking about how the blacks and the white
shirt cooperate in order to grow South Africa. That is
something that you don't find in many other leaders.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
You said at the start of this conversation that you
do feel that the end is not far away, that
you are prepared for that. How do you actually think
about that prospect when you've reached a hundred.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I have had almost eighty years of experience in politics
in Malaysia, and during that eighty years, I think many
of the problems were resolved, not fully, of course, but
I think that my experience would be useful for future
leaders of Malaysia. So I talked to them. I explained
(20:57):
to them what needs to be done, why you should
recognize the problems and analyze it, and then you will
know how to treat them.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
I don't think you've made life easy for your successes
by continuing to speak as you do.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Life is never easy for anyone, not for me either.
I do what I think is the best thing that
I could do, and I think in a way I
have delivered. One other thing is different of course, but
I was given an opportunity to do something for this country.
(21:35):
I have put my best effort, and I think to
a certain extent, I have achieved some goals.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Talcdor Martin Muhammad, thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
This is the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm wanh.
This conversation was part of the Bloomberg Weekend interview We're
Hoast Michelle Husain speaks tooential voices in politics, business and
culture from around the globe. You can find an annotated
transcript of this interview with Mahathir Mohammad, as well as
an archive of past conversations with leaders like Elon musk,
(22:13):
Uk Prime Minister Kiir Starmer and you and aid's executive
director Winnie Bianima at Bloomberg dot com, slash Weekend or
in the Bloomberg app Our special. Thanks to Jessica beck
Ed Johnson, Andy Clark and Nettie idayu Ishmael. Thanks for listening.
Have a great weekend.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm wan Ha and this is the Big Take Asia
from Bloomberg News. Today. On the show, an interview with
Mahathir Mohammed, Malaysia's longest serving prime minister. Michelle Hussein, an
editor at large from Bloomberg Weekend, sat down with mah
Their in the offices of his foundation just outside Kuala Lumpur.
Mah dear turned one hundred years old this week.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Michelle asked him about his thoughts on aging and leadership,
what he thinks Donald Trump's terra for means from Malaysia,
and what he sees as the way forward in a
world that's getting more tense and divided by the day.
Here's Michelle's edited conversation with former Malaysian Prime Minister mah
Tir Mohammed.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Doctor Marti, your political life has spanned more than six decades,
including a comeback to lead your country again at the
age of ninety two. In contrast, Joe Biden, a younger
man than you, was engulfed by debate about his fitness
to lead. What are your conclusions on age and leadership.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Well, if you don't get any faithal disease, you should
live quite a long time. Of course, you have to
have some discipline in your way of life. You do
not get fed, and you do some exercise and keep
your brain busy thinking, talking, discussing, writing, reading. You must
(01:40):
keep the brain active, otherwise the brain loses its capacity.
So A breaches all those things.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
How do you feel about being one hundred? How conscious
are you that you are the last of your generation?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
In many ways bid frightening? You know, it means that
you are very near, that you are well, you are normal,
and so as time passes, you feel you are coming
to an end. And that's not comfortable. You were is isa,
(02:23):
But then then you have to accept that this inevitable.
You have to go. So while you are still around,
you should do something and not just lie down in
bed and wad for the time.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And you're certainly proving that in how active you continue
to be, including in your public comments on age and leadership. Though,
are you saying age should be no barrier at all?
Because when you first left politics in two thousand and
three at seventy eight, you did think you were too
old to run for political office again.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah, well, I thought that age would affect my capability.
But I find out that is not necessarily in cape
stating if you are relatively healthy, you can function.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
But Joe Biden thought he was perfectly healthy, perfectly able.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Now, of course, some people age earlier. I believe in
working as a way of keeping the mind and body active,
and as you know, if you are not active, your
capectar shrinks is reduced.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Donald Trump, probably on this believes as you do. He
hasn't let age stand in his way.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Well, I think Donald Trump is relatively healthy, but his
attitude is the problem. He has this idea of making
America greed again, and to do that, he feels that
he has a confront the rest of the world, and
(04:07):
that is not a very good strategy.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Before we talk more about that, I want to go
back to your early life when the Japanese occupation began
during World War Two. What do you remember of that time.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Well, we were told that the Japanese were very cruel
people and they are prone to execute people, and naturally
we were very frightened. However, the Japanese when they came in,
they did single out the people who were against them,
(04:43):
mainly the Chinese who supported Chinese war against Japan. But
I was sorry the Chinese. I'm a Malay, and the
Genis have got no problem with malas a few Malays
who were also arrested and executi for things that they
have done. But generally the Japanese rule was not very desirable.
(05:11):
But on the other hand, they were not unduly.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Oppressive, except as you acknowledge if you were ethnic Chinese.
Those massacres by the Campetite, the Japanese secret police targeting
Chinese people, those were atrocities, weren't they. We should not
gloss over them.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
I'm not forgetting the wrong things that they did. But
the fact is that after the war they seem to
change completely. We cannot pull their past against them all
the time. If we keep on thinking about the past,
the conflicts of the past, and you are affected by this,
(05:54):
you cannot change to a better world.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
But also, it was economically imports possible, wasn't it for
a country like Malaysia to hold these things against Japan
because it was the dominant power in Asia. China was
nowhere economically at that point.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
We saw Japan as a good model of how a
country that was devastated by war was able to recover
in such a short period. And not only recover. At
one time there were number two in the world. We
thought that we should learn about it, we should copy,
and we should be able to achieve what they achieve.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Let's come to the present day then, and the current
reality since Donald Trump returned to the White House, the
atmosphere of trade tension and uncertainty. How would you say
Malaysia and the region Southeast Asia be affected?
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Well, you cannot help but be affected by drums policies.
He's against the whole world and to him, by raising
the tariff high, it will stop the goods from being imported.
But this is not a very good strategy because if
(07:27):
you reached the tariff on important goods, the cost of
those goods coming into your country will be very high.
And if those goods are required for your industries, like
components like microchips, the cost of your product would be higher.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Are you speaking from your own experience, Because there was
a time, indeed, for many years when Malaysia's economy was
built around tariffs on goods coming in and quotas, and
Malaysia had to reorient that model completely to try and
industrialize and become more of an export facing economy. So
(08:06):
if you were speaking directly to Donald Trump, What would
you say to him? How would you put this message
across in the punchiest terms.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
We tell him that he is wrong. He said, he
is wrong. He's going to damage America more than the
rest of the world. Of course, the rest of the
world will suffer, but America will suffer more because all
those industries which were set up by Americans outside of
(08:35):
America to take advantage of low course, those industries cannot
come back to America in the short time necessary. So
for some time America would still continue to import these
products with high tariffs.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And he might say to you, look at the way
all these countries, including Malaysia, are desperately negotiating with me
to try and get the tariffs down. He might well
take that as evidence that they are the ones who
are going to be badly affected, not America.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Yes, if the asport in the America, but the rest
of the world is not imposing high tariffs. So we
should increase our trade with the rest of the world.
With China, for example, we can increase our trade with China,
and to a certain assent, we can mitigate the effect
(09:32):
of Tim's high tariff by avoiding.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
America and selling more to China.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
And selling more to China and the rest of the world.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Does that have its own complexities? If you end up
closer to China economically, do you also end up closer
to China politically.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
The fact is that China is a neighbor has been
a neighbor of Malasia for the past almost two thousand year.
We have survived with China being a big power. But
theude of China is different than the edited at Europeans.
The Chinese may invade, but they do not colonize in
(10:15):
the Europeans. The Portuguese when they came here in fifteen
o nine, two years later they came and conquered us.
So we have lived with China all these years, and
we have to accept that China is a powerful nation.
We can't go to war against China. We have to
(10:35):
find somewhere of living with them.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
A powerful nation where ultimate control is with the Chinese
Communist Party, which is run on an authoritarian system and
which does destabilize its neighbors, which does make territorial claims,
as Malaysia itself has experienced in the South China Sea.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
China did not conquer Taiwan. They made use of Taiwan
to get technilogy and investment for China. The relationship was
all right because it's useful to China.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I'm not sure the Taiwanese will see it that way.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
The Chaiwanese have always been very close to China in
terms of investment, in terms of technology. Even the fact
is that if China wanted to, they could have evaded
Taiwan a long time ago. But did you you see?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I think if I talked to you in a previous
in a previous time, you would have been more forthright
about disputes like the Spratley Islands, which in the South
China Sea, which is one of those areas where Malaysias
had great difficulty with China. Today, you seem to be
taking a much more benign view. And I wonder is
(11:50):
that because of these realities that Southeast Asia is having
to make a choice and China is the choice that
is made.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Yeah. Well, China claims South china See belongs to China,
but that is their claim. We don't accept their claim.
In fact, although they claim South chenes See, they have
not taken action to show that this is their territory.
They have not stopped ships from passing through or examine
(12:24):
ships or impost restriction in the South China.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
But they do military exercises which create a lot of alarm,
live fire drills. These are not necessarily the actions of
a good and peaceful neighbor.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Well, when you send warships to South Chenan, see what
do you expect China to do?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
American warships? You mean yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And when you purposely make a visit to Taiwan and
told Taiwan that you will be invaded by.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
China, you mean Nanci Pelosis.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
When she went there for the good reason she went there,
and immediately after that, tension rules. And when tension rules,
then America says Taiwan, you must rearm and they had
wide weapons from America. So the tension has been increased
by that visit.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
In several parts of the world, we see not just
tension but outright conflict, whether it is Ukraine, Gaza, Israel,
and the United States recent strikes on Iran. You've seen
a lot in your time, including living through the Second
World War. What do you see as you look around
(13:55):
and see that level of conflict in the world.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
They will always be conflicts, but conflicts are not necessarily
resolved through confrontation through wars, you can negotiate, You can
even go to the workhord and get a decision. Now,
the rest of the world seems to think that any
conflicts should be resolved by war, and if there is confrontation,
(14:24):
you should provoke countries into active action, as happened with Russia.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
You see Ukraine as a provocation.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
You mean, yeah, there are many other countries which were
allied to Russia by word freed by Grover Shop. They
joined NATO. Russia did not object, But Ukraine has a
long border with Russia, and when Ukraine joints NATO, it
brings NATO right up to Russia. And naturally this is
(14:58):
not something Russia can accept.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
But as you've suggested, there are different ways to respond
to things. And annexing part of another country's territory as
Russia has done, crossing international borders to invade with tanks
as it did three years ago, Ukraine would say this
is a war for its survival. And in the Middle East,
(15:25):
Israel would say that it has acted in self defense
against Tamas.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
When a country is actively carrying our genocide and says
that Geno said is a way to defend this country,
that is not acceptable.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
What do you think then, of the Arab countries, Muslim
countries like the UAE and Bahrain, who in this entire
period have maintained their diplomatic relations with Israel.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Well, dear not unite that we have to accept the
fact that the Muslim countries are not united. Each has
got its own policies. But all these things sat when
Palestinian land was ceazed to make Israel.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Do you accept the idea of two states? Do you
accept Israel's right to exist as well as advocating for
Palestinian rights?
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Yeah, two states would be a good solution at this
moment because there is no way for the Arabs to
do away with Israel. Israel is there.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
May we come to the present day in Malaysia and
what you hope the country would become by the year
twenty twenty, a fully developed country. It was a goal
that you set back in nineteen ninety one and it
hasn't quite been achieved. What do you think of the
reasons for that.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
We were progressing very well. We had certain policies in place,
and the country was growing at a very high rate
seven percent eight percent every year GDP growth. But when
I stepped down. They decided to drop completely the policies
and the strategies that enable Malaysia to grow very fast.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I wonder, though, Dr Matteir, if you can take some
responsibility for the fact that Malaysia hasn't fully lived up
to what you hoped for. Take the idea of race
based affirmative action policies that privilege the ethnic Malay majority
your own community. It means privileged access to education, It
means discounts on housing. It means companies led by ethnic
(17:35):
Malay citizens have certain access and greater privilege. Is that
really the right thing to do in the twenty first
century in a country that should be a meritocracy.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Well, we learn from America. America introduced affirmative action to
help the blacks catch up with the whites. Here, we
feel the disparity with the Malays and Chinese is dangerous.
It is going to lead to confrontation, maybe violence. And
in fact, in nineteen sixty nine there were rich Rids
(18:13):
because the Malays generally were poor. After independence, the Chinese
were rich, and even politically, the Malay dominance was eroded
because of that. We feel that we should reduce the
disparity between rich and poor within Malaysia and Chinese. That
(18:36):
was why we adopted affirmative action.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
But it creates distortions, doesn't it. It has led to
a brain drain of talented ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indian
citizens who don't feel there's a level playing field. And
I think you yourself have said there will be a
time to withdraw these policies. Of course, politically they're very
hard to withdraw when parties need to win elections.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
When you introduce any policy, there will be people who
are not happy, people who are happy. Very few have
left Milasia, even those who have migrated to other countries,
retained their Malasian citizenship because they want to come back.
This is the country that they have been brought up
(19:23):
in and they feel that over time things would resolve.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
In your own life, amongst those you've known leaders across
the world, who did you admire, you were a contemporary
of le Kuwan News who made Singapore one of the
wealthiest nations in the world. Did you envy that?
Speaker 4 (19:44):
No? I think my idol is Nelson Mandela. I know
well his level hiddenness is something remarkable. Was the wounded
Asian leader who met him after he was relieved. I
was expecting him to be a very bitter man or
(20:04):
a broken man because he was in jail. He was not.
He was talking about how the blacks and the white
shirt cooperate in order to grow South Africa. That is
something that you don't find in many other leaders.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
You said at the start of this conversation that you
do feel that the end is not far away, that
you are prepared for that. How do you actually think
about that prospect when you've reached a hundred.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I have had almost eighty years of experience in politics
in Malaysia, and during that eighty years, I think many
of the problems were resolved, not fully, of course, but
I think that my experience would be useful for future
leaders of Malaysia. So I talked to them. I explained
(20:57):
to them what needs to be done, why you should
recognize the problems and analyze it, and then you will
know how to treat them.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
I don't think you've made life easy for your successes
by continuing to speak as you do.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Life is never easy for anyone, not for me either.
I do what I think is the best thing that
I could do, and I think in a way I
have delivered. One other thing is different of course, but
I was given an opportunity to do something for this country.
(21:35):
I have put my best effort, and I think to
a certain extent, I have achieved some goals.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Talcdor Martin Muhammad, thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
This is the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm wanh.
This conversation was part of the Bloomberg Weekend interview We're
Hoast Michelle Husain speaks tooential voices in politics, business and
culture from around the globe. You can find an annotated
transcript of this interview with Mahathir Mohammad, as well as
an archive of past conversations with leaders like Elon musk,
(22:13):
Uk Prime Minister Kiir Starmer and you and aid's executive
director Winnie Bianima at Bloomberg dot com, slash Weekend or
in the Bloomberg app Our special. Thanks to Jessica beck
Ed Johnson, Andy Clark and Nettie idayu Ishmael. Thanks for listening.
Have a great weekend.
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