My good friend Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong; Excellencies; Ladies and Gentlemen.

Dear friends:

Thank you, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, for your kind words and for graciously agreeing to chair our session today. We remember you as an able statesman and a good friend of Indonesia, who did exemplary work carrying the baton from Singapore's remarkable leader, Lee Kuan Yew.

I wish to begin by thanking ISEAS for inviting me to give the Singapore Lecture here today. Since having been elected President, I have given several keynote speeches at different forums, but this is the first time since I received my doctorate degree that anyone has asked me to give a “lecture”. As flattering as this is, I do not feel that I am in a position to lecture to an audience made up of Singapore's best brains. In fact, Singapore, being the world's most successful city-state, has a lot to tell the world about the lessons of governance.

I stand here today to speak about “the challenge of change for Indonesia”.

All of you in Singapore know the meaning of “change” very well. I know of no other country in the world which has changed as rapidly and as frequently as Singapore. In the last few decades, you have transformed this island into a modern city-state, a world-class trading, manufacturing, financial centre, thus making Singapore relevant—relevant to the region, relevant to the world economy.

There are many ways to measure “greatness” in a nation, but history tells us that the measure of a country's greatness lies in its ability to adapt—adapt to changing times, adapt to new challenges, adapt to emerging trends, adapt to new terrains.

I am going to talk tonight about some very broad issues, but issues that I believe have a direct bearing on the prospects of much of the world over the coming decade. My comments will be divided into three parts. I want to talk, first, about the changing trends that have dominated developments in the world over the past several centuries, and that I think foreshadow the developments that we shall see in the coming decades. I want then to examine a bit more carefully the nature of the forces that produced those trends; finally, I want to conclude by looking at what developments are likely in coming decades in response to those forces.

In 1899, a famous British constitutional lawyer, A.V. Dicey, gave a series of lectures at Harvard University, which were later collected and published in a book under the title: Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in the Nineteenth Century. That book contains a profound analysis of the forces that determine the government policies and of the role of public opinion in shaping those policies. Dicey's main thesis was that legislation affecting public policy follows public opinion but only after a long lag. If public opinion moves, then some ten or twenty years later, that movement in public opinion is reflected in policy. This idea was expressed later in a famous paragraph by John Maynard Keynes when he talked of “madmen in authority … distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”.

Mr Rajaratnam, Honourable Prime Minister, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Before I speak I would like to say thank you to Mr Rajaratnam for his kind words. I am afraid he has raised too many expectations from my talk. I am going to be very conservative tonight and I am not going to be nasty to anyone. So, it would be a different person from the person who was born on 20 December 1925 who will be speaking before you tonight. So I apologize for the disappointment I am about to cause.

I would like to thank the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for inviting me to deliver this Singapore Lecture, the ninth in your series. It is indeed a great honour for someone who is not an economist and who is not a retired statesman to be invited to speak at one of the most celebrated events of the Institute.

The subject of this Singapore Lecture is related to the future. My fear is that economists and politicians, retired or otherwise, are about as good at foretelling the future as those who rely on the stars and the tea leaves. Practising economists have the aid of the most sophisticated models and the most sophisticated and complex theories. The members of this profession have the advantage of being able to rely on the staple of their trade: the two hands—on the one hand, this, on the other hand, that.

Mr Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you, in the first place for your kind invitation, and secondly, Mr Minister, for your kind words of introduction.

I have been told that in former years my friends, Valery Giscard d’Estaing and Henry Kissinger, have given talks at this occasion. And this reminds me of a little story which I related to Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. It is a true story. Earlier on this autumn, some old friends met in the house of former President Gerald Ford in Colorado, USA: Valéry Giscard, Henry Kissinger, Jerry Ford himself, Jim Callaghan from Britain, Malcolm Fraser from Australia, and myself—all of us “elder statesmen”, so to speak.

And one evening, at the end of a private conversation, Jerry Ford summed it all up by saying, “Well, obviously, we ought to agree that the world was much better run in our time of office.” Mr Lee Kuan Yew said over lunch, “And this may even have been true.”

I think Jerry Ford would have said the same thing if one more gentleman had been present, who also was out of office in the mean time. I am talking of the former British Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, whom I admire very much. He, I think, was the world's outstanding Foreign Secretary in the late seventies and early eighties. Earlier on this year, he gave a marvellous speech, the Alistair Buchan Memorial Lecture, in London, where he not only criticized profoundly the present political, economic, military upheaval within the Western Alliance, but beyond that demanded what he called “a positive political strategy” in dealing with the Soviet Union.

Thank you, Mr Minister. Prime Minister Goh and Senior Minister Lee, I am delighted to be here and thank you for that very kind introduction. Let me take this opportunity to say a few words about these two gentlemen.

Minister Lee, a quarter century ago, you led this small island of cultural and ethnic diversity, of limited physical resources, to independence. Then, through your vision and your force of intellect and will, you forged Singapore's nationhood. You stood courageously in a life and death struggle against the communists, and you prevailed. You led your nation and your region in the quest for peace and prosperity. It is my convinced opinion that future generations will honour the name of Lee Kuan Yew. And as you know well from your visits to my home in Kennebunkport, I am pleased to know you as a friend.

Prime Minister Goh, I salute you for your wisdom and your vigour in carrying Singapore forward on its path to the future. I pledge America's steadfast friendship as you lead Singapore in facing the challenges of the coming generation. I am also pleased that you, like many of your countrymen, came to the United States of America for part of your education. These, too, are ties that bind us together.

It is an honour to deliver this lecture, following such leaders as Brian Mulroney, Helmut Schmidt, Rudd Lubbers, Bob Hawke, Mahathir bin Mohamad, and Valery Giscard D’Estaing and such distinguished thinkers as Henry Kissinger and Milton Friedman. And, let me acknowledge: Professor K.S. Sandhu, Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; A.V. Liventals, Chairman, Mobil Oil Singapore; Lee Hee Seng, Deputy Chairman, ISEAS Board of Trustees; and Dr Richard Hu, Chairman, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and Finance Minister.

Your Excellency Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Professor Wang Gungwu, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, students.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you here today. I’d also like to thank my host, Prime Minister Lee, for inviting me to visit your country.

2015 was a notable year for Singapore. You celebrated fifty years of independence with a parade of 11,000 people, fireworks and 600,000 roses made from recycled plastic bags. For me, those roses are typical of Singapore. Both creative and responsible. Even on a public holiday, you uphold the principles of the circular economy.

On 23 March of the same year your country was plunged into mourning by the death of Lee Kuan Yew. He is greatly missed. In the words of his son and your prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, “To many Singaporeans, and indeed others too, Lee Kuan Yew was Singapore.”

Lee Kuan Yew's life ran parallel with Singapore's transformation from a colony to one of the best-performing countries in the world. He was the architect of the republic. In his memoirs he noted, “We had to create a new kind of economy. Try new methods and schemes never tried before anywhere else in the world, because there was no other country like Singapore.”

His vision and dedication helped turn Singapore into an economic superpower. With its low unemployment rate, high GDP, low levels of corruption, and wellmaintained public spaces, Singapore has rightly been described as “the little city that could” and “the envy of the world”.

So what is your secret? What makes us so jealous when we look at Singapore? I expect you know better than I do. But if I were to hazard a guess, I would say it's all down to education. Singaporeans make Singapore what it is, and this country invests in its people. You value your human capital. Thanks to ISEAS and other research and education institutions, Singapore is a world-class knowledge hub. Its universities are among the best in Asia and even the world. But it all starts with primary schools and teachers. And they too are among the world's best.

It is a great honour to have been asked to give this lecture and I thank Professor Chan Heng Chee and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for the invitation. Australia has had a long and productive association with the Institute over many years.

I also want to thank the Government of Singapore for its support for the lecture and, especially, Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan for his courtesy to me in chairing it today.

This is my third visit to Singapore as Prime Minister and it is always a pleasure to come here. There is an energy about Singapore which flows from people who are conscious of the inevitability of change and who are trying to shape that change for the better.

I admire that Singapore, perhaps more than any other place in the world, teaches the vital lesson that we cannot prepare for the future until we know what we want it to be.

This has been the distinctive principle guiding Singapore's modern history: the same principle that some time ago began to guide Australia through the present era. When you face things and begin to do what must be done, you liberate ideas about what can be done. This great era of change has meant that as we approach the centenary of Australia's nationhood a new, stronger and clearer vision of our future has begun to emerge. And it now goes without saying that much of the future we see—we see in the Asia-Pacific.

INTRODUCTION

Malaysia`s Economic Transformation Program aims to propel the country to highincome status by 2020. Behind Indonesia, the country is the second largest oil and gas producer in Asia and aspires to become a regional hub in oil and gas (PWC 2017; MIDA 2017). Johor stands at the forefront of this endeavour, as the state aims to become a regional oil and gas storage and trading hub. This will be done by attracting major international investments and increasing petrochemical output.

These goals are also integrated into Iskandar Malaysia's development plan. The Iskandar Malaysia (IM) region was launched in 2006 and is one of five economic corridors promoted by the federal government. The Comprehensive Development Plan II (2014–25) for the region plans “to develop an environmentally friendly petrochemical and oil and gas cluster” and stresses the importance of its proximity to Singapore's petrochemical complex on Jurong Island.

The flagship project that will turn this vision into reality is the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC), a Petronas-led project with envisaged investments of US$27 billion. The PIPC was inspired by the Amsterdam-Rotterdam- Antwerp (ARA) model of maritime activity, port network and oil supply chain connectivity. The ARA is vital to Northern European oil and gas bunkering and transport. Partners of the PIPC such as the Dialog Group projected that “in 20 years Pengerang could surpass Rotterdam” (Huong 2012).

Against this background, the aims of this chapter are to explore the evolution of Johor's petrochemical industry vis-à-vis Singapore and to examine the developmental impacts of the PIPC. This chapter intends to answer the following research questions:

• 1. What are the functional and sectoral specializations of Johor's oil and gas industry?

• 2. What is the rationale behind the PIPC?

• 3. How does Johor compete or complement Singapore in attracting foreign direct investment?

• 4. What are the developmental impacts of the PIPC?

• 5. Can the PIPC succeed?

Methodologically, we applied a mixed methods approach. The FDI Markets database is used to illustrate investment flows to Johor on a quantitative basis. Qualitative insights have been gathered through literature and newspaper reviews. In addition, we conducted nineteen expert interviews with managers of multinational enterprises, consultants and development agencies between autumn 2016 and spring 2018 to gain a better understanding of the rationale behind the foreign investment. The interviewed enterprises cover all segments of the oil and gas production network, including upstream, midstream and downstream activities.

INTRODUCTION

Islam has always been an important factor in Malaysia's politics. Even political parties whose members are mainly non-Muslim cannot run away from debating the role of Islam in public policy. Since its establishment in 1951, the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) has dominated the discourse on political Islam, and many others have had to respond and compete with it. It would not be wrong to say that the deepening Islamization in Malaysia over the years is the result of political competition between PAS and the ruling coalition. However, a new development took place in 2015 when a group of senior PAS leaders left the party to form Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah). PAS suddenly found a competitor who is also staking a claim on the right to define and shape the discourse on political Islam in the country.

This chapter looks into the break-up and its implications on the politics in the southern state of Johor, since this was the state where much of the groundwork to form Amanah took place. Following this introduction, a brief history behind the break-up is provided. Attention is then given to Johor, with a discussion on the role of activists in the state that led to the formation of Amanah, the party's current organization, and their likely electoral potential. The chapter concludes with a discussion on how the emergence of Amanah may affect PAS in Johor.

FROM PAS TO AMANAH

To understand how Amanah came to be, a brief review of the evolution of Islamist thoughts in Malaysia is useful, as it has heavily influenced PAS’ own evolution. The history behind PAS’ establishment in 1951 is a contested one. Arguably, it was closely tied to the strategy of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) which was founded five years earlier, especially to the latter's desire to widen its support base. UMNO at that time was worried that it was losing support from conservative Malay Muslims and wanted therefore to reposition itself as a champion of Islam. Thus, UMNO sponsored two Ulama Congresses (Perjumpaan Alim Ulama Tanah Melayu), on 20–22 February 1950 and 23 August 1951. The purpose was to bring together conservative Muslim scholars to discuss, among others, steps that they could take to bring the country towards independence.

INTRODUCTION

For those living in Singapore or Peninsular Malaysia, accustomed to having fresh chicken eggs every other morning, chances are that your breakfast comes from one of 17 million broody hens raised in the Malaysian state of Johor (DVS 2017; AVA 2017).

If this comes as a surprise, you are probably not alone. Most recent commentaries concerning Johor's economic growth give the impression that agriculture is now a historical relic. The Iskandar Malaysia development project—accompanied by glittery real estate, oil and gas refining, complex manufacturing, mass tourism, and sophisticated healthcare offerings—now hogs the limelight.

Indeed, even for field-leading scholarship on greater Malaysia's economic development, agriculture has been conspicuous by its relative absence, sidelined by an overwhelming focus on manufacturing and services.

This chapter represents an initial attempt to redress this imbalance. I ask two basic questions: what is left of agriculture in Johor? And why? My argument is similarly direct: although agriculture's share of Malaysian gross domestic product (GDP) and employment has fallen significantly, much remains, particularly in Johor. Amidst rapid urbanization and industrialization, agriculture's economic contribution in Johor has actually held steady and witnessed resurgence over the past decade. Johor's present-day agricultural strengths lie in oil palms, livestock farming, and certain forms of ornamental products. These agricultural activities are underlined both by high output and productivity relative to the rest of Malaysia. The clusters of trade networks and expertise underpinning these developments were already being developed in Johor prior to independence, and were given additional support from the 1960s onwards through policies linking industry with agriculture.

Johor's unusual situation can be best understood by comparing its presentday context with its past. The following section briefly outlines Southeast Asia's and Malaysia's agricultural transformations since the 1960s. A subsequent section places Johor squarely under the lens, comparing the size and productivity of its farm sector with the rest of Malaysia’s. A third section examines the key historical drivers behind Johor's long-standing agricultural prominence. A fourth segment reviews the overarching roles that Malaysia's federal and state governments have played in shaping Johor's resource-heavy economy

INTRODUCTION

Johor has a multitude of natural treasures within its boundaries. The only state in Peninsular Malaysia that has a coastline on three sides of about 400 km, it faces the South China Sea in the east, the Melaka Strait in the west and the Tebrau Strait in the south. Johor's marine habitats run the gamut of intertidal mud flats to whitesand beaches and coral-fringed islands. Seagrass meadows and mangrove forests that host large megafauna such as dugongs and turtles can be found all along its shoreline. Within these marine borders, Johor's terrestrial habitats comprise peatlands, forests, hills and mountains, of which 12.4 per cent are protected as national parks or wildlife and forest reserves (UPEN Johor 2017, p. 3). These landscapes are host to myriad endangered and endemic species, including the Malayan tiger, Asian elephant and Malayan tapir.

Gunung Ledang (also known as Mount Ophir) is Johor's highest point at 1,276 metres and is the source for thirteen rivers and a key water catchment area for both Johor and neighbouring Melaka. Johor's ten main river basins are the mainstay of the state's water security as 97 per cent of its raw water supplies come from surface water sources. The Johor River alone provides 60 per cent of the state's water supply.

These natural habitats and features are not the only components to be considered in a discussion of Johor's environment. In studying Johor's environmental policies, other issues that need to be explored include: matters of energy sources and use; carbon creation and sequestration; environmental and carrying capacities; traffic congestion and urbanization impacts; land-use; pollution; resource optimization; waste management; and air quality (IRDA 2014). Technologies or infrastructural innovations that mitigate development impacts or enhance sustainability should also be considered (UPEN Johor 2017, p. 52).

This chapter discusses the main environmental issues faced by Johor and the action taken to mitigate some of the problems. It also examines the policies that govern environmental management and action in Johor, as well as complications that arise from overlapping legislation and jurisdictions at the federal level, and its effects, if any, on Singapore and the Riau Archipelago. The chapter also briefly discusses environmental decision-making under the past and current state government and ends with a look forward in terms of Johor's efforts for the environment and sustainability.

INTRODUCTION

With 3.7 million residents, Johor is the third most populated state in Malaysia. Its ample interior houses vast oil palm plantations, and its urban areas are host to sophisticated manufacturing operations as well as a growing services sector. However, beyond its contribution to the nation's economy, the state's place within Malaysia's political context is key.

After Sarawak, Johor is the state with the most members of parliament, ahead of even Selangor, the country's most populated state. The state has a deep historical relationship with two of the largest component parties of the former ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (BN)—the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA).

Johor's diverse ethnic composition has lent itself to the coalition style of politics adopted by BN and, up until Malaysia's 14th General Elections (GE-14), the state consistently delivered overwhelming parliamentary and state assembly majorities to the former ruling coalition. Indeed, relative to its performance elsewhere in the country, support levels for the former ruling coalition were consistently ten per cent higher in the state, earning Johor the sobriquet of a “fixed deposit” for BN.

However, as in the rest of the country, Barisan Nasional's performance began to decline in Johor after 2008 and, particularly, 2013. In the run-up to GE-14, the former ruling coalition was looking weak in the state, particularly in urban, semi-urban, and mixed rural seats.

The state's size, prestige, and ethnic heterogeneity made it of interest to other parties. The DAP had been active in urban and Chinese-majority areas in the state since the 1960s. Following schisms in the Islamic party PAS and UMNO in 2015, Johor's sizeable Malay population was important for fledgling parties such as Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah).

Consequently, the opposition coalition, Pakatan Harapan (PH) declared the state a key battleground for the 2018 elections and made sure to deploy a number of heavy hitters to contest in key constituencies. Nonetheless, the conventional wisdom going into GE-14 was that although BN was looking vulnerable, the long track record and advantages of incumbency meant that they would still retain the state.

INTRODUCTION

As the southernmost state in Peninsular Malaysia, bordering on Singapore, Johor serves as an entry point for a substantial number of tourists. In 2016, the state ranked third of those that contribute to tourism industry incomes, generating RM11,406 million in 2016. This figure represents an annual average growth rate (or added value) of 6.9 per cent (Department of Statistics 2018a). Johor's ranking in terms of tourism income banks heavily on Singaporean visitors. Malaysia's overall inbound tourism receipts contributed to 6.7 per cent of the national GDP in 2016 (Nikkei Asian Review, 31 October 2017), with 26.8 million tourists arriving in the country in that same year. Of these arrivals, Singaporeans made up the bulk of the visitors (13.3 million or 49.6 per cent), with Indonesians in a distant second place with 3.1 million (11.5 per cent) visitors. Many of these Singaporeans enter Malaysia through Johor.

Domestic tourism also generates economic revenue for Malaysia, with 189.3 million local arrivals registered in 2016 with a total expenditure of RM74.8 billion. It was reported that Tourism Malaysia listed Johor as the most popular destination for domestic tourists with 7.4 million recorded local visitors in 2016 compared to the next favourite local destination (Perak) at 7.2 million in the same year (Mohd Farhaan Shah 2018). However, a domestic tourism survey conducted in 2017 (Department of Statistics Malaysia 2018) did not place Johor in the top five states preferred by domestic visitors. Instead, Selangor ranked the highest at 25.5 million domestic visitors with Perak coming in second with 20.1 million voters. The remaining favoured domestic destinations in the top five according to this survey were Kuala Lumpur, Sabah and Sarawak.

Johor enjoys one of the fastest economic growth rates in Malaysia, often attributed to the establishment of the southern economic corridor, Iskandar Malaysia, in 2006. However, while Johor enjoys high international tourist arrivals through its land bridges to Singapore, it does not seem to retain these tourists within the state. In order to examine tourism in Johor, this chapter will first set out the relevant context regarding the structure of tourism management and policy-making in Malaysia. From there, it will provide an overview of the industry within the state, and then look at its approaches to both domestic and international tourism, as well as the policies that support or prohibit tourism development across Johor. Future developments, opportunities and challenges will also be discussed.

INTRODUCTION

Introduced over a century ago, oil palms are currently Johor's most significant agricultural offering. Over one-third of Johor's entire landmass is planted with oil palms. Thirty per cent of these lands are farmed by independent smallholders, nearly twice the national average (MPOB n.d.-a; MAMPU n.d.). Further downstream, Johor's millers produced one-sixth of Malaysia's crude palm oil in 2018, worth nearly RM7 billion in revenue (MPOB n.d.-b). The territory hosts numerous downstream players pumping out refined palm oil, margarine, specialty fats, oleochemicals, and biodiesel. Johor's two major ports—Pasir Gudang and Tanjung Pelepas—anchor these production clusters, while also exporting RM15.5 billion of vegetable (mostly palm) oil products in 2017—an impressive 28 per cent of Malaysia's world-leading output (DOSM n.d.). Much of this global prominence stems from Johor's long history as an agricultural powerhouse, its forays into resource-based industrialization, and its relative success in becoming a trade hub for edible oils and chemical derivatives.

This essay will survey the oil palm's increasingly heavy presence within Johor's landscape, commerce, and political economy, grounding discussions in broader global and historical contexts where necessary. The paper's next section outlines the oil palm's importance to world trade, the crop's social and environmental complications in Southeast Asia, and the significance of independent smallholder farming arrangements. We then present a brief history of Johor's multilayered oil palm farm sector since its inception. A third section tracks the oil palm's journey through the value chain, mapping out the millers, crushers, refiners, merchants and equipment manufacturers that have consolidated Johor's status as an attractive locale for commodity processing. Having outlined the main commercial players involved, we then turn towards the more political dimensions of Johor's oil palm sector: the electoral significance of Johor's Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) settler communities, other government-linked entities involved in oil palms, and land control issues, the latter especially dependent on close ties with Johor's state government. Land use concerns also connect with our final section, which looks at how urbanization, landowners and sustainability requirements are influencing the oil palm's future in Johor.

INTRODUCTION

Johor, West Malaysia's southernmost state, has undergone a tremendous urban transformation over the last decade. Its strategic location, adjacent to Singapore, has contributed to escalating development and rising land values. The state offers many opportunities for investors; its rapid urban transformation is closely associated with the establishment of Iskandar Malaysia, a special economic zone (SEZ) that was officially launched in 2006. Initially 2,217 square kilometres in area, Iskandar Malaysia was singled out as the highest-impact development project in the Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006–10). Modelled ostensibly after the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, Iskandar Malaysia seeks to maximize spillover effects for business and industry from land-scarce Singapore as well as other destinations. In its wake, the SEZ brought an unprecedented building boom and speculation in the international property sector.

Malaysia has a long-standing history of land reform and redistribution. From independence, land reform was deemed critical for poverty reduction, as seen through large-scale initiatives such as the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA), which sought to create livelihoods for poor rural families with little or no assets (Henley 2015).

However, while land management is, according to the Constitution, a state government responsibility, national-level needs and initiatives have led to federal government encroachment in these and many other areas (Hutchinson 2014). As land remains a premium asset for the both levels of government, the process of sourcing for and developing land can become contested.

Johor's land redistribution policy and property development practices have undergone profound changes over the last ten years. The state government has opened up Johor Bahru's high-end residential market to both local non-bumiputra enterprises and foreign developers. There are about forty ongoing or recently completed property projects in Johor. These projects attributed to 42 per cent of the stock of 702,101 new houses in the state. From 2007 to 2016, Johor recorded a total sale of investment properties of more than US$8.1 billion. In 2013, over 76.4 per cent of investment properties (mostly residential) were purchased by foreign investors (Savills World Research Malaysia 2015).

This chapter aims to understand and reflect on Johor Bahru's fast-changing urban environment. It intends to broaden the study of land reform by considering how government-linked companies, bureaucratic elite and foreign developers have acted together to reshape land development practices in contemporary Johor.

INTRODUCTION

On 9 September 2016 the Malaysian Registrar of Societies (RoS) gave approval for the establishment of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM), following the splintering of the main party in the country's ruling coalition, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO). PPBM was then officially launched on 14 January 2017, boasting some of the most famous names in Malaysian politics today as its top leaders. Malaysia's longest-serving Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was named as Chairman, and former Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin as President. Former Chief Minister of the northern Malaysian state of Kedah, Mukhriz Mahathir, who is Mahathir's son, was named Deputy President.

Right from the start, PPBM projected itself as a party that champions the Malay agenda. This is a position traditionally dominated by UMNO, who has always been able to fend off other contenders. PPBM's Malay agenda also bucks the trend among Malaysian opposition parties who usually prefer to take a more multiracial and multicultural approach. This is a bold strategy, and makes clear that PPBM aims to replace UMNO as the political party for ethnic Malays in Malaysia. Bearing in mind that UMNO today is led by Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is suffering from various allegations of corruption and whose popularity rating has been very low for many months (Time, 23 May 2017), the establishment of PPBM is a development that cannot be ignored.

Soon after the party obtained the RoS approval, Muhyiddin declared that it would work towards wresting the southern state of Johor from the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (BN) (Bernama, 9 October 2016). This announcement was not surprising. Johor is after all Muhyiddin's home ground. Not only is he member of parliament for the Johor constituency of Pagoh, he was Chief Minister of the state from 1986 to 1995. Johor is also the birthplace of UMNO and has remained the party's bastion since 1946, which makes the proclamation by Muhyiddin worth scrutinizing further. Is this a realistic target for the fledgling party? This chapter seeks to answer that question.

It presents the author's analysis of media coverage and academic literature on the topic, together with findings from extensive fieldwork conducted between April and August 2017. During the fieldwork, interviews were conducted with national, state and divisional leaders and activists of PPBM, other parties in the opposition coalition, and UMNO.

In 2016, when ISEAS published the book, The SIJORI Cross-Border Region: Transnational Politics, Economics, and Culture, co-edited by Francis Hutchinson and Terence Chong, Malaysia was on the cusp of major political change. The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition secured a parliamentary majority in the 2013 general election, but lost the popular vote. This book, the second in a series of three, began in 2016 and took three years to complete, by which time the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition had ousted the incumbent to become the ruling party. Johor, Peninsular Malaysia's southernmost state, also fell to PH, which secured thirty-six out of fifty-six seats in the state parliament.

Johor enjoys a central place in the SIJORI region. Over the last two decades, it has seen significant political and economic developments. Its economic and social interactions with Singapore and proximity to the Riau Islands have contributed to its stellar growth. The state's population grew from 2.7 million in 1990 to 3.7 million in 2017. These factors facilitated Johor's industrialization drive as well as economic diversification, and altered its politics, society and environment. The establishment of Iskandar Malaysia in 2006 further accelerated these developments.

Today, the close economic and people-to-people relations between Johor and Singapore continue to flourish. Both are connected to each other by cross-border networks in sectors such as electrical and electronics, oil and gas, logistics, as well as agriculture. In Iskandar Malaysia, health and education services are new elements of this co-operation. In the near future, the proposed rapid transit system to link Johor and Singapore will further enhance interactions between them. The growing importance of their interactions saw Singapore establishing a consulate in Johor in November 2009.

Francis Hutchinson and Serina Rahman, the co-editors of this book, have assembled a team of twenty collaborators. Their collective work will contribute to a better understanding of the key transformations that have taken place in Johor since its embrace of export-oriented industrialization in 1990, and the different influences to which the state has been exposed as a result of its position within the Malaysian Federation and the SIJORI Cross-Border Region.