COMMENT | With Japan being the first country to visit after being sworn-in again as the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir Mohamad's’s pledge for the rejuvenation of the Look East Policy (LEP) did not come as a surprise.

Regardless of how successive BN administrations attached importance to it after the end of the first Mahathir era (1981-2003), such a policy has never vanished from our foreign policy radar since its introduction in 1982.

Now, with Asia tipped to become the world’s economic powerhouse and the locus of international affairs in the coming years or even decades, not ‘looking East’ is definitely not an option for the Pakatan Harapan administration which is determined to re-position Malaysia onto the right track of economic development.

Having said that, what the present Malaysia needs is not the older version of the LEP but ...