L. Thangsuankhup, International Journal of Research in Engineering

L. Thangsuankhup, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588, Impact Factor: 6.565, Volume 09 Issue 04, April 2019, Page 131-138 Africa-Malaysia Relations: Major Determinants L. Thangsuankhup (Phd Scholar, Centre for African Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India) Abstract: Malaysia and many African countries has a deep and long history and had shared colonial experiences in the past but their relationship in the 21st century is mainly due to the South-South cooperation. Africa-Malaysia relations could be ascribed to four major determinants namely- the Bandung Spirit, the South- South cooperation, Malaysian foreign policy and lastly Malaysian involvement in African Affairs and vice versa. All the major determinants are discussed in the paper. Finally, the article concludes that the South-South cooperation, reinvigorated by the Bandung Spirit, posed a serious challenge by making the new development cooperation patterns of trade and investment by developing countries of the South in Africa, like the North, appears to be largely focused and concerned in the continent’s primary commodities which may end up with marginalization of Africa. Keywords: South-South cooperation, Bandung Spirit, foreign policy, marginalization Since the end of Cold War and the dawn of the new millennium, the ideas of an anarchic system has become less and less possible in several fields of statecraft, whereas interdependence and globalization have grown and resulted in an evolution for restructuring systematic interactive phases among nations by breaking down barriers in the areas of politics, diplomacy, economics, culture, communication and several other fields of endeavour. These transformations have brought overall development in Africa particularly the sub-Saharan Africa and helps Africa nations to build their relations with other world especially with the developing South countries. Malaysia has a deep historical political, economic and cultural relationship with many Africa countries due to their colonial experiences and also through their active involvement in many international activities which are organized under the umbrella of South-South Cooperation. Africa and Malaysia had shared the same experiences in terms of their relationship with their colonial master. They both were ravaged by imperialism for more than three hundred years. Thus, Africa’s engagement with Malaysia are of course historical and time- tested; nevertheless, their ways of engagement has change and become revitalized in accordance with time and most importantly with the changes in foreign policies of the country’s and in general, due to global change and the arrival of globalization in recent years. Therefore, beyond their traditional trading style, there is an increasing political, economic and cultural relationship between Africa and Malaysia. The engagement of Africa and Malaysia in the 21st century was mainly under the umbrella of South- South cooperation (SSC). The SSC also has unfolded the opportunities for economic cooperation between African nations and the developing Southern nations in the contemporary global arena. A hallmark of the old geography of trade in which the relationship between the North and the South was the centre periphery is steadily being superseded by more balanced economic relations among developing countries. Thus, this transitional change has made Africa and Malaysia to work together in tandem during the international arrangement in the era of globalization. Thus, better future and development for Africa starts germinating through their engagement with other developing South countries particularly Malaysia under SSC in the 21st century. Determinants of Africa-Malaysia relations Four major determinants that has contributed to Africa-Malaysia relations are namely the Bandung Spirit, Malaysia foreign policies, the SSC and lastly the role played by Malaysia in Africa and vice versa. The Bandung Spirit The beginning of Anglophone Africa-Malaysia engagement in the 21st century could be traced back since the 1955 Bandung conference. The commemoration was a milestone because all the leaders of Asia and Africa in the meeting came together with one mind and one objective and no ideology had divided them. They all sought for the solidarity and cooperation of the developing South. The resultant Bandung Conference not only brought together the leaders from two continents of Africa and Asia but promotes peace, prosperity and progress in the two regions and also bridge the gap for mutual benefits and development. Later, Non-Aligned Movement was formed in 1961 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Even though Malaysia did not participate in the conference, she was influenced by the Bandung spirit and later played an active and integral role in the formalizing the South movements. Also Malaysia developed bilaterally and multilaterally relationship with African countries through international mechanisms such as UN and its agencies like the creation of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Group of 77 (G-77) in 1964, the Group of http://indusedu.org Page 131 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License L. Thangsuankhup, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588, Impact Factor: 6.565, Volume 09 Issue 04, April 2019, Page 131-138 15 (G-15) in 1989 and other organizations. In fact, it was the “Bandung era” which heralded the beginning of a period marked by the Southern countries efforts to “achieve economic modernization at home via state-led development, and demand greater political and economic equality vis-à-vis developed countries in the international stage. This era saw the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, and calls for a New International Economic Order” (CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness, 2014). Motivated by the actions of NAM and G-77, The United Nations General Assembly embraced a series of resolutions calling upon the United Nations system to support developing countries in their works to increase technical cooperation among themselves during 1972- 1977. During this period, the General Assembly gave a stringent efforts and decided to- formulate recommendations on technical cooperation among developing countries (TCDC) by establishing a working group; promote TCDC by setting up a Special Unit within United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); organised a special session at a high political level fervent to development and technical cooperation; and engrave TCDC as a permanent item in the General Assembly agenda (M. Mounir Zahran, Enrique Roman-Morey and Tadanori Inomata, 2011). After preparing continuously for five years long, the United Nation conference on TCDC took place for the first time in the capital of Argentina from 30th August to 12th September, 1978. In this conference all the members had adopted the Buenos Aires plan of action (BAPA) for promoting and implementing technical cooperation among developing countries. The BAPA main emphasis was on “national and collective self-reliance” among the developing countries and provides new orientations in approaches to development cooperation. The BAPA became the first major blueprint for TCDC and new International order foundations. It was in 2003 that the UN had started using the term ‘South-South’ cooperation by clubbing two models of Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC) and Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries (ECDC) which were introduced in the 1970s (Zenaida Delica-Willison, 2011). One year later, “the General Assembly, in resolution 58/220, replaced the term TCDC by South-South Cooperation (SSC)” in 2004, (M. Mounir Zahran, Enrique Roman- Morey and Tadanori Inomata, 2011). In short, the Bandung Spirit means “the spirit of unity of the Asian and African people, opposing imperialism and colonialism, struggle for the defense of national independence and world peace and the promotion of friendship among the peoples as demonstrated at the Conference” (Kamarulnizam, 2013).It had strongly tried to demolished colonial heritages and rejected a history of repressive foreign interference all through the two regions by uniting various countries of Africa and Asia so as to work outside the realm of Western power and impact. The Bandung gathering was an announcement of principle from the worldwide south that denoted the confidence of less developed countries against the imperial and outside the circle of developed West in the international stage. Then again, in spite of the fact that the non-aligned movement continued until the finish of the Cold War, the solidarity created by the “spirit of Bandung” had debilitated by end of the 1960s, through which time a large number of the original participant members in the conference had been never again in power in their separate nations. Nevertheless, the Bandung Principles which was once a standout amongst the most vital results of the conference have been steering nations in the Asian-African continents just as those in different continents through the hardship and commotion of the cold war period since their inception. A decade after the Bandung conference and the aftermath of Cold War, the facts confirm that colonialism in the traditional sense had all vanished in the decades that pursued, however it was supplanted with others types of control that were similarly harsh and oppressive. Most strikingly,

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