Is Malaysia an apartheid state?

[jaichind]

If any state could be called apartheid (or at least proudly and institutionally segregationist) it seems to me that uMNO ruled Malaysia is it.

I do not agree with this.  While there are laws in Malaysia, which I totally oppose, that enforces economic privileges for  Bumiputra (sons of the soil which is just non-Chinese and non-Indians) as well as making it illegal to question these laws, there are no laws that enforces segregation.  Any racial or religious segregation are of the auto-segregation type.  These laws exist due to the economic domination of the Chinese and to some extent Indians in the Malaysia private sector which co-exist with Malay political domination.  I would more compare this system to USA affirmative action laws and Indian caste base reservation system than South Africa.  It does not make it oppose it any less but it is not a fair comparison.

Just like in USA and India the economic impact these attempts of economic distribution had fairly low level of impact in shifting the economic hierarchy of the various groups involved after the first few years of the system being put in place.   As expected the elite of the beneficiary groups tended to hog most if not all the benefits and the overall economic balance of power between the advanced economic groups and backward economic groups have not changed.

[jaichind]

Yeah, but the Chinese have historically been the majority in the main commercial centers of KL and Penang. They also have advantages in JB because of proximity to Singapore and in Sarawak where they're the elite minority in a land of minorities much like the Japanese in Hawaii.

Yep.  One of my aunts which I have not meet in 30+ years married some rich Chinese rubber plantation owner in Sarawak.  I remember some of the stories I heard from her about the economic-social structure in Sarawak when I was in elementary school when she came back to Taiwan Province ROC for a visit.  Sabah is a bit less skewed as the Chinese (who are mostly Hakka whereas in Sarawak it is more mixed between Hakka Hainan Guangdong and Fujian/Taiwan backgrounds) there are somewhat more numerous but their economic domination less prevalent than in Sarawak but the main narrative is the same.

[jaichind]

One thing I have admit as a Libertarian is that while these policies have led to an exudes of Chinese voting with their feet along with their capital from Malaysia, overall the Malaysia economy remains fairly dynamic.  So I am sure there are economic costs to this sort of illogical policy it seems that a foolish economic (but most likely effective political) strategy could damage the economy but still not stop it from a rapid pace of development.  I guess perhaps the economic gains for Malays (and by implication economic loss for Chinese and Indians) are fairly limited that the majority of Chinese and Indian capital still chooses to stay in Malaysia so the damage is limited while giving the UNMO what they needed to stay the dominate political force among the Malays.