1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910345109403321

Autore

Tan Tai Yong

Titolo

Creating "greater Malaysia" : decolonization and the politics of merger / / Tan Tai Yong

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Singapore : , : Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, , 2008

ISBN

981-230-743-5

981-230-798-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (ix, 224 pages) : illustrations, maps

Collana

Gale eBooks

Disciplina

959.5051

Soggetti

Decolonization - Southeast Asia - History

Malaysia Politics and government

Singapore Politics and government 1963-1965

Malaysia Foreign relations Singapore

Singapore Foreign relations Malaysia

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 24 Nov 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-204) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface / Yong, Tan Tai -- Map of British Colonies in Southeast Asia (1946) -- Map of Malaysia (1963) -- Introduction -- CHAPTER ONE: Decolonization and the "Grand Design": Aspects of British Policy in Post-War Southeast Asia -- CHAPTER TWO: Merger and Greater Malaysia: Political Attitudes towards Union between Singapore and the Federation -- CHAPTER THREE: Setting the Stage: Tunku's Ulster-type Merger and Singapore's White Paper Proposals -- CHAPTER FOUR: The Citizenship Issue -- CHAPTER FIVE: Financial Arrangements and the Common Market -- CHAPTER SIX: The Borneo Territories and Brunei -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Chronology of Key Events Leading to the Formation of Malaysia -- Dramatis Personae -- Index -- About the Author

Sommario/riassunto

This book offers an in-depth and detailed analysis of the political processes that led to formation of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. It argues that the Malaysia that came into being following the amalgamation of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo was a political creation whose only rationale was that it served a convergence of political and economic expediency for the departing colonial power,



the Malayan leadership and the ruling party of self-governing Singapore. "Greater Malaysia" was thus an artificial political entity, the outcome of a concatenation of interests and motives of a number of political actors in London and Southeast Asia from the 1950s to the early 1960s. The book contrasts the complicated negotiations and hard bargaining between Singapore and Malaya on the critical issues of citizenship, control of finances and the development of a common market during the lead-up to merger with the relative ease with which the North Borneo Territories were incorporated in the Federation. The haste and testing conditions in which negotiations were conducted between 1961 and 1963, often with the British facilitating the process as an "honest broker", led to a number of unresolved compromises between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. These compromises, however, did not obviate the possibility of future difficulties, and the seeds of dissension sown by the disagreements between the two governments were to sprout into major crises during Singapore's brief history in the Federation of Malaysia.