Asia has a new public emergency: breathing life into moribund economies.
Months after severely curtailing social and commercial activity in a bid to contain Covid-19, governments are scrambling to reboot activity. They confront a coronavirus that isn’t out of business but economies that very nearly are. The policy priority is shifting from suppressing infections at almost any cost to combating truly awful scenarios for jobs, prices and gross domestic product.
Malaysia has often been a poster child for Southeast Asia’s booms and busts. The nation is again at the confluence of powerful trends. Its experience in the pandemic illustrates conditions around the region, and the choices that it now makes may be instructive. In times of tumult, the country has usually been a source of stability. Malaysia tends to avoid the sudden swerves in policy and coups that have characterized many of its neighbors. The route that Malaysia takes to recovery will be closely watched.
