REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohammad had admitted that his country was a copycat, copying from Indonesia and also other countries, such as Japan and South Korea, in the positive way to develop itself.

"Malaysia was a copycat, we like to copy from other countries since we often dont have ideas," Mahathir said, answering a question from an audience during the Question and Answer session after his lecture at the Bank Mega Building in Jakarta on Monday.

Mahathir explained that Malaysia could not help but imitated its neighboring country Indonesia, since the two countries were located close to each other and shared a similar historical and cultural background.

"We copied from Indonesia because it was our closest neighbor, and it was the country where so many Malaysian travelled to study, for tourism and for doing business," he said

"There were more than 100 thousand foreigners who studied in Malaysia too. So, there must be several similarities," Mahathir added.

According to Mahathir, in the ancient time before the colonialists arrived in the Malacca Strait, the Malays would easily travel in the region, which was the modern Indonesias and Malaysias territory.

"They easily traveled, and the trade between the strait region (Malaysia) and the Archipelago (Sumatra Island) was developed. They traded with gold and silver. They had a good relationship until the West came and separated them," he said.

Moreover, Mahathir said in the modern era, Malaysia and Indonesia had been growing as two developing nations, which played an important role in the Southeast Asian region as both were the founder of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

"Until now, the relationship between Malaysia and Indonesia was strong, but it needed to be improved. As neighbors there may be problems, but I am sure that we can resolve it in a positive manner," he said.

During the past few years, Indonesia and Malaysia had several problems related to territorial and cultural claims by Malaysia. On the other hand, Indonesia had about 150 thousand migrant workers in Malaysia.

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