By AR Rahman

KUALA,LUMPUR, Malaysia: PAS President Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang’s recent claim that the party was offered support by the United States to topple the Barisan Nasional government in 2014 has raised serious questions across the political spectrum. While few international observers would dispute that Washington actively engages in diplomatic leverage and influence operations globally, the narrative presented by PAS falls apart under basic scrutiny.

Convenient Timing and Political Theatre

The most glaring anomaly is timing. Why did Hadi wait twelve years to disclose an alleged attempt by a foreign superpower to subvert Malaysia’s constitutional order? Raising a decade-old allegation today reads less like a principled defence of national sovereignty and more like calculated political theatre designed to stir up domestic anti-Western sentiment.

Furthermore, PAS presents an exceedingly unlikely candidate for Washington's political backing. As an ideology-driven, far-right Islamist party committed to expanding sharia law, curtailing secular democratic norms, and altering Malaysia’s institutional framework, PAS stands at complete odds with the core foreign policy objectives of any American administration.

Blinding Silence on Real Threats to Malaysian Sovereignty

What makes Hadi’s anti-Western crusade so glaringly hypocritical is his party’s total silence regarding tangible, aggressive incursions into Malaysia’s national sovereignty. While the US has consistently acted as a reliable security and economic partner for Malaysia—generating thousands of high-value jobs and driving industrial growth through decades of foreign direct investment—China has repeatedly undermined Malaysia’s territorial integrity and strategic industries without a peep of criticism from PAS.

In the maritime sphere, Beijing’s aggressive posturing directly threatens Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). A prime example is the 2020 West Capella incident, where a Chinese research vessel, backed by a heavy flotilla of Coast Guard and maritime militia ships, harassed a drillship contracted by Malaysia's state energy firm, Petronas. The standoff off the coast of Sabah represented a direct challenge to Malaysia's sovereign rights over its offshore energy resources. Yet, Hadi and his party offered no public condemnation of this clear coercion in the South China Sea.

Similarly, Beijing has actively targeted Malaysia’s strategic critical minerals sector. When non-Chinese rare earth producers challenge Beijing’s global market dominance, covert influence campaigns step in. Cybersecurity firm Mandiant exposed "Dragonbridge," a massive pro-China network of fake social media accounts and covert channels, which systematically targeted Lynas Rare Earths in Pahang. Dragonbridge amplified messaging through local non-governmental organisation networks and manufactured public alarm over environmental concerns to sabotage Lynas and protect China's monopoly over the rare earth supply chain.

Despite these documented attacks on Malaysian economic sovereignty and maritime rights, PAS remains completely silent.

The Quiet Relationship with Beijing

While Hadi directs public outrage toward hypothetical Western covert actions, PAS maintains a glaring silence regarding its direct and documented engagements with China. In late 2024, Hadi held a high-profile meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia Ouyang Yujing at the embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Officially framed as a courtesy call to "foster harmony" and strengthen ties across PAS-administered states, the nature of these bilateral exchanges warrants far greater public oversight.

Given the party's historic rhetoric warning its grassroots against external ideological threats, its willingness to roll out the red carpet for foreign diplomats of the world's foremost Communist country reveals a striking double standard.

The suspicions deepen when looking at electoral operations. By PAS's own admission, the party utilised specialised external expertise and strategic frameworks in digital mobilisation—specifically surrounding TikTok and short-form video algorithms—during its highly successful 2022 general election campaign. Reports and observers have repeatedly pointed out the potential involvement of foreign technical advisory in training political machinery on non-traditional social media tools.

A Shield for External Alignments

When a political movement accepts technical expertise, strategic consultations, and digital campaign support from external actors, it crosses the threshold from domestic political organising into accepting foreign political influence.

This raises critical questions that Hadi and the PAS leadership have systematically avoided answering:

How many senior PAS officials, youth leaders, and state operatives have participated in sponsored educational programmes, exchange delegations, or political training trips to China?

What specific agreements or understandings were reached during diplomatic meetings with foreign envoys regarding state-level economic concessions in Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah, and Perlis?

Does the acceptance of foreign social media expertise and strategic campaign assistance not constitute a direct form of foreign political influence?

When evaluated alongside its quiet diplomatic cultivation of Beijing and its refusal to defend Malaysia against maritime incursions or cyber-sabotage, PAS’s sudden outrage over a twelve-year-old alleged US plot looks like a classic diversionary tactic. By painting itself as a victim of Western meddling, the party creates a convenient political shield. 

This outrage allows PAS to defame a longstanding, reliable partner while ignoring a clear and present danger to Malaysia's sovereignty. Pointing fingers across the Pacific cannot disguise the fact that those throwing stones over foreign interference may well be living in a glass house.

*AR Rahman is a former civil servant who observes national and regional affairs from his porch in Kuala Lumpur's historic Kampung Baru.*