Abstract

Having recently celebrated her fiftieth year of independence, Malaysia now needs to take a re-look at some critical issues concerning ethnic relations in the country.  With increasing public pressure towards human rights and social equity, certain government initiatives such as the New Economic Policy may warrant a thorough overhaul.  Such exercise, however, should only begin based on an improved understanding of the past and present associations among the various ethnic groups.  With that in mind the current study sets out to paint a fresh and candid picture of the relationships between the two largest ethnic communities in Malaysia: the Malays and Chinese.  This is sought through a review of the literature as well as an analysis of macro-level statistics, in particular the vital statistics, industry figures and mean incomes.

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