How to spot if a politician is an insecure, ignorant paranoiac mentally stuck in the 18th century? He's obsessed about land.
I'm not really sure what Mahathir wanted to accomplish with his comments, given that most Malaysians would very much like to see their country become like Singapore. Perhaps he was appealing to those at the bottom of the social ladder, who are typically most easily swayed by empty, nationalistic slogans.
But I'm certain that even they would have few complaints about living standards upon visiting the city-state, which - here's a history lesson for Dr. M - was kicked out of Malaysia by racist ignorants like himself, opposed to the idea of equality of all ethnicities, trying instead to built a Malay ethnostate.
It's the 21st century and yet so many national leaders (including those helming some of the largest countries) are still obsessed about their land holdings, instead of what to do with them.
Vladimir Putin started a ruinous war against Ukraine, despite the fact that Russia is already the largest country on the planet (and by some margin).
But to his mind the proof of its (and his) greatness did not lie in all the amazing things it should be able to achieve having access to such a vast area with quite endless wealth, but by invading and annexing even more, brutally subjugating millions of others for still unspecified reasons (other than his own muscle flexing).
Elsewhere, Xi's China is bent on ruining its relationship with most of the world by doubling down on threats against Taiwan, instead of letting it just be (while furthering productive bilateral cooperation).
Geopolitically (as well as culturally and ethnically) Taiwan will never leave the Chinese orbit so why is direct control over it (which would be very hard to achieve anyway) so important?
Xi Jinping is willing to undermine the future of his country at a critical juncture when local population and labour force have already started dwindling, to threaten starting a pointless fight over a relatively small island inhabited by fewer people than Shanghai.
Not that he is the only one. During Mao's time China conquered Tibet and is now busy repressing Xinjiang - in both cases driven by nowadays completely irrational fear of geopolitical risks on its southern and western frontiers.
What may have been a legitimate risk for centuries, is no longer so.
This was the lesson of World War 2 - started by Hitler in part because he believed the great German race needed "Lebensraum" (literally: living space) to its east to grow as an empire he envisioned.
It was also the lesson of the Cold War, which showed that it doesn't matter how much land you have, how many countries you control or even how many people inhabit them, if you don't know how to productively use them in the post-WW2 age of globalization and technological progress (and central planning turned out to be a monumental failure).
Land ownership has, for the best part of human history, been very important as - until the industrial revolution - our economies have all been dependent on agriculture (as well as a mining, woodcutting, hunting and so on). Basically: exploitation of natural resources.
But it is no longer so.
The lesson from Singapore should not be "oh we sold our land to the British 200 years ago, so we should try to avoid it now at all costs" but rather "look how much can be done with so little".
