Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and Strategic Relations: An International Journal (Dec 2021)
In the Dragon’s Tight Embrace? A Neo-Gramscian Perspective on Malaysia’s Foreign Policy towards China
Abstract
Existing literature on Malaysia-China relations have conveniently relied more on external and geopolitical variables, where hedging is perceived as the only viable foreign policy (FP) within the context of the rise of China and corresponding security dilemmas in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects and the South China Sea (SCS). By adopting a foreign policy analysis (FPA) framework of FP decision-making (i.e., the process) and a Neo-Gramscian perspective of state-business relations (SBRs), with a particular focus on domestic political shifts from the Najib to Mahathir administrations, we study the hegemonic forces at play in the business-ruling elite nexus, resistance to attempted FP recalibration after the 2018 election, the interplay between domestic and international distinctions, as well as formal and informal individual agency in various dimensions of bilateral ties. Drawing on elite interviews, and key secondary literature in global FPA, Malaysia’s FP, and domestic politics, this study offers a provocative premise: domestic constraints and FP dilemmas. Our findings illuminate three lessons that Malaysian policymakers and researchers have to learn with regard to this bilateral relationship: (a) foreign policymakers are not a tabula rasa; (b) they must move away from hedging prescriptions; and (c) the need for a critical turn in the FPA framework.
