Jonathan Sikes and Pete Engardio

(What they said about him in 1994 - which is not much changed from today)

Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List may have won seven Oscars in Hollywood, but that didn't impress Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammad. His government banned the film, charging it was Jewish propaganda.

This action sparked an uproar, but controversy is nothing new to the Malaysian leader. Whether he's railing against environmentalists, retaliating against British companies for negative press, or snubbing President Bill Clinton by refusing to attend last fall's Seattle summit of Asian leaders, Mahathir relishes tweaking the West.

But he's more than a gadfly. Mahathir is trying to position himself as a kind of 1990s version of earlier Third World leaders such as Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser or Indonesia's Sukarno. Mahathir's message that Asia is now strong enough to thumb its nose at the West is winning a following. His influence is apparent in the new tone toward the West that smaller Asian countries have adopted. Singapore, for instance has so far refused to back down in its determination to flog an American youth for vandalizing cars.

ARM TWISTING. On a much more serious issue, Mahathir recently rallied opposition to a move by U. S. and European negotiators to link preferential access to their markets to workers' rights. Western attacks on cheap labor, the main comparative advantage of many developing countries, is simply "disguised protectionism," Mahathir charges. Washington backed off when leaders of 15 developing countries endorsed Mahathir's view.

Mahathir knows how to twist American corporate arms as well. After meeting with him in Kuala Lumpur on Apr. 9, a group representing 16 U. S. Chamber of Commerce chapters in Asia called on Washington to stop trying to link human rights to trade.

Sitting atop booming markets for everything from Boeing air craft to Hollywood movies, Asian leaders are rejecting Western liberal values. They're quick to compare low unemployment and crime rates produced by their systems with the West's urban war zones. "The vast majority of Americans who visit Singapore leave wishing desperately they could bring back some of the law and order they find here," says a local newspaper, defending the decision to flog 18-year-old Michael Fay.

Mahathir excels in trying to put Malaysia's booming market to political use. When Australian Premier Paul J. Keating blasted him for boycotting the Asian summit, Mahathir told Australian companies they would get no more government contracts until Keating apologized. A lukewarm "clarification" came within days.

So far, Mahathir's lecturing hasn't hurt him at home. With economic growth averaging 8.5% for the past six years, Mahathir's National Front coalition is in solid control. His backing for Palestinian statehood and other Islamic causes helps him with Malaysia's Muslim majority. But some observers wonder whether Mahathir's increasingly abrasive behavior might foul the climate that has led such companies as Intel and Motorola to make Malaysia a global base for manufacturing and design. "If you were a businessman from Iowa and all you read about Malaysia are bad things, would you come here?" asks a U. S. executive in Kuala Lumpur.

Mahathir's outspoken anti-Westernism also makes some of his neighbors, including Indonesia's President Suharto, uneasy. Such countries as Indonesia and Thailand want a Western presence in the region to balance Japan and China, and that will limit Mahathir's influence.

[From: Business Week, April 25, 1994]