Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak unveiled his Global Movement of Moderates (GMM) in 2010. GMM has primarily been an international campaign because any domestic association of the Najib Administration with moderation has been undermined by perceived close ties between an increasingly right-leaning Umno and NGOs calling for aggressive responses to inter-ethnic issues, such as Perkasa and Isma.
Moderation stands in stark contrast to the Prime Minister’s heavy-handed use of the Sedition Act to suppress speech by journalists, academics, students, lawyers, and politicians.
The image of moderation put forward by Najib’s GMM plays on a US stereotype of Malaysia as a moderate Muslim nation that is compliant with US geopolitical interests, in contrast to Muslim-majority countries such as Iran and Syria.
Najib and his GMM were featured in a 2013 event hosted by the influential New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, an organisation that boasts many past US Secretaries of State and National Security Advisors as members
The government-linked media has reported that Wisma Putra has been conducting high-level visits around the world to lobby for a Security Council seat. Delegates have reportedly traveled as far as Samoa and Kazakhstan to secure support.
Najib’s foreign policy thus far has been rational and pragmatic in that he has recognised that both the US and China are crucial to Malaysia’s geopolitical future. He has tried very hard to please both of them with reciprocal state visits.
However, when two elephants fight in the jungle, the mouse deer risks being crushed between them. Washington-based analysts suggest that Najib is presenting himself as an Asia-Pacific outpost for the US in relation to China while attempting to placate China on the other hand.
More @ Malaysian Insider
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