Malaysia Growth at Risk as Dagger-Waving Repels Ethnic Chinese

Prime Minister Najib Razak is trying to build a Malaysian economy as powerful as in the 1990s, when stock prices almost quintupled in the decade through 1996. Now his efforts to lure investors are stirring opposition from some members of the ethnic-Malay majority that put him in office.

Najib has pledged to boost growth by rolling back key policies of ethnic favoritism that his father began four decades ago. Leslie C., an ethnic Chinese, responded by moving to neighboring Singapore, which has grown 81-fold since 1971, when the Malaysian ethnic measures were introduced. Malaysia’s economy expanded at half that pace.