Towkays at twilight
A CNY check-in on Malaysia's Chinese business dynasties.
Since we are still enjoying the Chinese New Year festivities, I just had enough juice for a thematic newsletter.
A nod to the enduring, and evolving, role of Chinese Malaysian business dynasties.
These families built empires amid political patronage, privatisation waves, and ethnic policy constraints.
Given the auspiciousness, I just had to review Malaysia's Class of '99 tycoons.
Fair warning: by word count, it’s quite the long read.
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Terence Gomez’s 1999 book Chinese Business in Malaysia remains the seminal reference, mapping three phases: colonial-era accumulation, post-1970s accommodation under the New Economic Policy’s Bumiputera tilt, and late-1980s/1990s ascendance during liberalisation.
The era’s tycoons — Robert Kuok, Quek Leng Chan, Vincent Tan, Lim Goh Tong, Francis Yeoh, Khoo Kay Peng, among others — commanded swathes of industry, aligning tightly with Malay political elites.
Today, most patriarchs are in their 80s or beyond, or deceased. Succession remains patchy, with nepobabies stepping up amid a frayed political compact.
Government-linked funds (Khazanah, EPF, PNB) are the largest gatekeepers of state capital.
Malay nationalism is becoming sharper with a more conservative bent. Politics, after the change of guard post-2018, remains more fluid.
So, what has become of the mighty Chinese Malaysian capitalist class of the ‘90s?