The Second Wave of Malaysia’s Look East Policy (LEP):Bringing New Continuity, Change, and Challenges

Abstract

In 2013, Malaysia announced the second wave of its Look East Policy (LEP 2.0) which focuses on developing strategic sectors with a special emphasis on high technology and high-end service industries. As Malaysia is currently still in the starting phase of LEP 2.0, it is important to review the first phase of LEP to fully understand its limitations and weaknesses existent in it, so as to better understand how certain regional transformations should be incorporated into the new wave successfully. This paper argues that the first wave of LEP showed pro-Japan biasness rather than a relatively balanced approach toward both Japan and Korea. The bilateral ties of Malaysia-Japan outweighed those between Malaysia-Korea, as indeed, the former Prime Minister’s pro-Japanese inclination affected the full outcome of LEP. In other words, Mahathir’s pro-Japanese stance produced a largely neglected attitude toward Korea. Therefore, despite all the achievements and fruitful results of the LEP, the program still had inherent weaknesses. The ongoing changing global scenarios and the importance of Asian regionalism, however, has now pushed Malaysia to announce the LEP 2.0 under Prime Minister Najib’s administration.