How the Chinese minority navigates identity and politics in PAS' Kelantan

Despite centuries of integration anda strong sense of belonging, the Chinese minority in the Malaysian state of Kelantan, which has been ruled by PAS for decades, now sees its youth leaving.

- Hadi Azmi Malaysia Correspondent Lu Wei Hoong Malaysia Correspondent

Kelantan's slow pace of development and economic stagnation has driven youth to leave for better prospects. Official figures put the state's absolute poverty rate at around 11.5 per cent - the worst in Peninsular Malaysia.

(ST PHOTOS: HADI AZMI)

Chinese wedding dinners in the Malaysian state of Kelantan have become a little less effervescent in the last few years. Instead of beer or champagne, the beverage of choice now is Coke or Chinese tea.Susan, an ethnic Chinese hotel executive in the state capital, Kota Bharu, pointed to a 2024 policy by the Kelantan government that forces Chinese-owned kopitiams, bakeries and restaurants to obtain halal certification if they serve Muslim customers even if their owners are not Muslim.

"Customers previously were able to bring their own alcohol to weddings at hotels, but they are no longer able to because of the strict halal requirements," said Susan, who asked to be identified only by her first name out of fear of speaking up against the state government.

"Hotels have to be halal-certified to get business from the state and government agencies," she told The Straits Times when it visited in December 2025.

This tightening grip on non-Muslim spaces seems at odds with Kelantan's own symbols of interfaith accommodation, such as that epitomised by the Sultan Ismail Petra Mosque, near the Malaysian-Thai border, just over 40km from Kota Bharu.

Breaking the monotony of padi fields and Malay villages, its architecture is distinctly Chinese, the green, glazed roof tiles arranged in sweeping, upturned eaves, and the red-accented structural beams typical of Chinese temples.

But on Friday afternoons, throngs of Malay men in kopiah (skullcaps) and sarongs congregate here as the call to prayer blares from speakers.