‘We are a small country’: why Malaysia is resisting US defence spending call

Malaysia is unlikely to come close to a US call for Asian partners to spend 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product on defence, analysts have said, as Putrajaya tries to modernise an ageing military without overwhelming public finances or appearing to align with Washington’s China strategy. Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the US had “every right” to ask allies to raise defence expenditure, but stressed that Malaysia faced limits as a developing economy. “For a country like Malaysia,...