So, who won: Mahathir Mohamad or George Soros? The venomous argument between the Malaysian leader and the US fund manager during the Asian financial crisis 20 years ago symbolised the fury of those times. It also dramatised the perennial question of how open emerging economies should be to the trillions of dollars in global speculative capital.
Mr Mahathir fired the opening salvos, calling Mr Soros a “moron . . . with a lot of money” and accusing him of targeting the Malaysian currency, the ringgit, to make “unnecessary, unproductive and immoral” profits from speculation. He also perceived dark motives, talking of a Jewish plot hatched by those who were “not happy to see Muslims progress”.
Mr Soros, who is Jewish, countered that Mr Mahathir was a “menace to his country”, who would not be able to get away with finding scapegoats for his own failings if “his ideas were subject to the discipline of independent media”.