By Ooi Kee Beng, for The Edge Malaysia, 24 April – 1 May 2026
Decolonisation is a complicated process. While a lot was written about it in the late 20th century, much less attention has been paid by scholars to that subject over the last two decades. This might suggest a popular acceptance (1) that it ended with national independence for most countries when they joined the United Nations, (2) that the quest for deeper awareness of pre-colonial culture and history has been achieved, or (3) that its salience as an analytical term ended with the Cold War in 1991.
To be sure, the impact that colonisation had on the whole world was so strong and deep that decolonisation, whichever way you wish to define that process, cannot really be thrown aside. First of all, we have to ask if colonisation as a historical process is over. If it is not, then decolonisation denotes a constant struggle against negative effects of [variedly continuing] colonisation.
That struggle happens in what we could call the Postcolonial Era. This does not say that colonialism is over as much as it recognises the continuing effects of it, whether seen positively or negatively.
To my mind, Postcolonialism is best identified as the Synthesising stage in classic Hegelian cognitive dialectics: Thesis to Antithesis to Synthesis: Colonialism to Decolonisation to Postcolonialism. The first happens, leading to opposition to it, and then follows a new phase of reconceptualisations which in time seeks to function as a new Thesis.
In that context, point 3 above is worth special note. Decolonisation occurred within the geopolitical framework of the Cold War, within what we nonchalantly call the Bipolar era. That association has been a profound and popularly understandable one. The fall of the Soviet Union did not end the need for global decolonisation though. In fact, the paradox here is that the victors in the Cold War were exactly the network of colonisers we have come to call the Western Powers; thus, decolonisation as exemplified in the communist project cannot have ended. Instead, a new term had to come into use to replace colonial power. Calling the aftermath of the Cold War the Unipolar period—the neoliberal period in geoeconomics—propounds the idea of emergent unity in the world, suggesting that Pax Americana had subsumed and triumphed over much of the decolonising passions seething in much of the world. The appropriate term to describe is really Global Hegemony.
What the pillars of this hegemony are, in light of how the West has been responding to China’s whole-of-society rise, are the supply chains. Whoever controls these, especially energy and other rare and key commodities, education and information, and weapons and payments, controls the world.
National Quasi-independence
National independence for most former colonies since 1945 has been an easy, serial, and convenient occurrence for defining when “decolonisation” happened, as if it were a definite event on the calendar, like a birthday. In Malaysia, the shout of “Merdeka” (Independence) echoed and etched into the minds of Malaysians the ending of colonialism. Decolonisation had taken place, and whatever followed, we learned to consider another process: “nation building”. This new focus, encouraged by the guerilla movement and by inter-ethnic tensions, deregionalised Malaysia’s understandings of decolonisation. Internal tensions took over as the problem of coming decades. The fact that neighbouring countries were emerging out of foreign control should have eased collaboration between them, not only towards each their own national sovereignty, but towards regional development.
ASEAN has been a recognition of this need, but not of its urgency and the essential role that that holds in the decolonising process.
National history is necessarily territorial, and yet the determining of the boundary of the former colonies which became nation states was a contingent process in most cases. The maritime nature of Southeast Asia speaks against the efficacy of such a political format.
Colonisation was a complicated affair which not only involved the creating and controlling of colonies, but also struggles between colonisers, including Japan. This led to the so-called world wars which devastated the colonial powers. Out of that came the idea of regionalism based on trade and connectivity. In Southeast Asia, the ending of colonialism was equated with the coming into being of sovereign nation states. For these uncertain governments to imagine any regional ambitions beyond the cautious ASEAN founded in 1967 was not imaginable.
Furthermore, all these countries had to immediately pick a side between the two victorious powers—the USA and Russia. In the West, these took the form of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
Notwithstanding the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and the conflicts on all other continents, the Cold War’s uneasy frontline was in Europe, each side backed either by Washington or Moscow. On the Asian side of the continental landmass, stumbling nations were mainly involved in what they saw as post-colonial nation building.
Regionalising Post-colonialism
As China rose on all fronts over the last three decades, drawing economic and other connectivities towards itself from the whole region, we saw the cracks emerging in Western alliances. Brexit happened, and then Trump 1, and then Trump 2. Whatever the underlying reasons for this—be it the power asymmetry between USA and its allies (some now say vassal states) having gone on for too long, the overly hasty growth of the EU, or social tensions resulting from cross-continental and cross-civilisational immigration, the rise of China and the almost spontaneous but strong trade regionalism that followed played a big part in it. Some would say a triggering role even.
This new geopolitical and geo-economic situation saw the USA feeling deeply challenged, and losing its patience with its allies—and everyone else for that matter. Its control over the key supply chains was being lost. It had one trump card to play, and that was the fact that it is the final destination on most global supply chains. And so, wielding high tariffs as a mighty sword, as Trump 2 then did, does make strategic sense. If only as a cornered combatant who had run out of ideas.
Where does this leave us? As Mark Carney so eloquently said, it is time for Middle Powers to stop feeling beholden to the USA, and start engaging in inter-government discussions to build new ties and reach new agreements that are plurilateral. Their collaboration outside of big power control is a strength in itself which the big guys have to take seriously.
On the Asian side, much can be learned from East Asia’s maritime legacy for inter-polity relations. Somewhat reflecting what Carney is imagining, Asian countries don’t really need “to hedge” in the sense extrapolated by bipolarity. Understanding that collaborations are multi-dimensional and multi-layered, fruitful relations can be developed in multitudinal fashion, and not through cowed membership in some gang run by a punitive godfather.
Datuk Dr Ooi Kee Beng is the executive director of Penang Institute, founding editor of Penang Monthly, festival director of the George Town Literary Festival, and senior visiting fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. His books include the award-winning The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time, In Lieu of Ideology: An Intellectual Biography of Goh Keng Swee and The Eurasian Core and Its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World. Homepage: wikibeng.com
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