The cooling off was not just for political reasons or investment fatigue or the Asian financial crisis. I'm not up with the activities of Malaysian firms -- mostly with links to the government and ruling party -- in Africa, but quite a few feathers have been ruffled by the behaviour of some of them. Patrick Bond would likely be able to fill in the details re S Africa -- I gather there's some scandal over a housing scheme, great unhappiness with the telecoms deal, etc.
Malaysian logging firms have also been active in Africa, as they have been in PNG, the Solomons, S America, Siberia, and their methods of operation have been questioned. The Malaysian government habitually puts this down to 'jealousy' or 'colonial attitudes'.
Re AA. When it was started in earnest -- it's written into the Constitution and known as Malay special privileges/rights, but for the first dozen years was carried out with a fairly light hand, mainly in government employment (a 4:1 ratio) and in university enrolments towards the end of the first dozen years -- in 1970, the population ratios were around 58% indigenous, 42% non-indigenous. The 58% indigenous was made up of around 52% Malay and 6% other indigenous (mainly in Sabah and Sarawak and, at the time, primarily in remote rural settlements). Thus, the AA was mainly directed at the 52% Malay which had, at the time, an urbanisation rate of around 25%.
I think those raw circumstances made it workable, even if with great resentment on the part of the non-indigenous. The raw circumstances plus the policy mix, including an agricultural subsidy scheme (for rice) which by the mid-70s meant that something like 50% of the incomes of rice farmers was effectively subsidies. Virtually all rice farmers were Malay.
I doubt if the raw circumstances of S Africa, plus the changed international climate, is conducive to the application of anything similar.
In any case, the continuation of that policy in Malaysia -- at least in the form it has had, completely race-based -- is increasingly recognised as untenable even amongst some in the ruling party, not to mention that it increasingly doesn't benefit those in need but those in greed. However, it has great inertia, and is the most tempting route to securing continued political dominance.
kj khoo