Malaysia

The Malay Peninsula and the northern coast of Borneo, the territories that today form Malaysia, have been inhabited for tens of thousands of years, with archaeological evidence of modern humans in the Niah Caves of Sarawak dating back roughly forty thousand years. The earliest inhabitants of the peninsula were the ancestors of the Orang Asli, later joined by Austronesian-speaking migrants who settled the coasts and river valleys. From the early centuries of the common era, Indianised port polities such as Langkasuka and the kingdom of Kedah emerged along the trade routes linking China and the Indian Ocean, drawing Hindu and Buddhist influences from the subcontinent. By the seventh century the Buddhist thalassocracy of Srividjaya, centred on Sumatra, exerted loose suzerainty over much of the peninsula, and was gradually succeeded by the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit empire of Java in the fourteenth century.

The decisive formative period began around 1400 with the founding of the Sultanate of Malacca by the prince Parameswara, which grew into a wealthy emporium and the principal vector for the spread of Islam through the archipelago. Malacca fell to the Portuguese in 1511, passed to the Dutch in 1641, and was ceded to the British in 1824 under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty that divided the Malay world along the Strait of Malacca. The British consolidated their position through the Straits Settlements (Penang, Malacca, and Singapore), the Federated Malay States from 1895, and treaties of protection over the Unfederated Malay States, while the northern Borneo territories of Sarawak became a personal realm of the Brooke family and North Borneo was administered by a chartered company. Large-scale Chinese and Indian immigration during the colonial period, drawn to tin mining and rubber estates, produced the plural society that still characterises the country.

Japanese occupation from 1941 to 1945 shattered British prestige and spurred Malay nationalism. After a brief postwar attempt at the Malayan Union, the Federation of Malaya was constituted in 1948, and the same year saw the outbreak of the Malayan Emergency, a twelve-year communist insurgency. Independence, known as Merdeka, was achieved on 31 August 1957 under Tunku Abdul Rahman. In 1963 Malaya joined with Singapore, Sarawak, and North Borneo (renamed Sabah) to form Malaysia, prompting Indonesia's Konfrontasi campaign; Singapore was expelled in 1965. Communal riots on 13 May 1969 led to the New Economic Policy, an extensive programme of affirmative action for the Malay and indigenous Bumiputera majority that reshaped the postcolonial economy.

The long premiership of Mahathir Mohamad, from 1981 to 2003, oversaw rapid industrialisation and the navigation of the 1997 Asian financial crisis without an IMF bailout. The dominant Barisan Nasional coalition, anchored by the United Malays National Organisation, governed continuously from independence until its defeat in the 2018 general election, the country's first transfer of power between coalitions. A period of parliamentary instability followed, with three prime ministers between 2018 and 2022, before Anwar Ibrahim formed a unity government after the November 2022 election.

Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy comprising thirteen states and three federal territories. The Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the federal head of state, is elected for a five-year term from among the nine hereditary Malay rulers under a unique rotational system, while executive authority rests with a prime minister responsible to the bicameral parliament.