China's belt and road runs into fresh trouble; now in Mahathir's Malaysia

Malaysia under Mahathir will have little appetite either for One Belt, One Road - or, for that matter, three- and four-bedroom apartments that could create a new political constituency

Perplexed, wounded, indignant or still optimistic. The Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings Co. can put any spin it wants on its Forest City project, a $100 billion Malaysian township whose fate suddenly has been thrown into doubt after Mahathir Mohamad’s pointed refusal to let foreigners buy apartments or live in them long-term.

One thing is clear, though: The prime minister is not acting impulsively. The project claims to be a “new global cluster of commerce and culture,” and a “dream paradise for all mankind.”  However, in Malaysian political discourse, Forest City is just a gigantic Chinatown of 700,000 residents. Taking