Both Malaysia and Indonesia are Malay (acc. 2 definitions used in Malaysia, Stinkypura and Brunei).
Acc 2 definitions used in Indon, only Malay speakers and ethnically Malays (mostly from Sumatra) are Malays. They have over 700 languages spoken in Jakarta alone, supposedly. Local contexts differ. For all intents and purposes, like it or hate it, Stinkypura and Brunei are integral parts of Malaysia more than they are parts of Indonesia, with which there remain a lot of differences at local, regional, adminstrative and cultural levels.
Indonesia is mostly an inward looking country and like all of ASEAN, they have never amounted to anything historically.
Obsessing over GDP is meaningless.
It is only one statistic that can be manipulated. E.g. Iran's GDP for 2022 estimated by IMF based in Washington D.C is at $1.7 trillion at exchange rate basis. This number is disputable, of coz.
Stinkypura GDP is mostly fluff, tax evasion, money laundering, property bubble, fudged stats. I'm not saying Yanks don't do it. They also fudge stats. I'm not saying Tiongs don't do it. They do and they've admitted to it - that many of their provinces jacked up growth rate figures in order to boost civil servant salaries which are tied to these KPI.
Neither is CECA or Turkey or Iran or Bangla or Indon or such guilt-free on this issue. Stats fudging is widespread in a lot of countries.
Looking at annual car sales might give you a better idea of the size of the total economy.
E.g. Jap annual car sales has hovered around the 5 to 6 million vehicles per annum mark, for decades, now. Their GDP has hovered around the $5-6 trillion mark, too.
Thai annual car sales has hovered over the 1 million mark for many years prior to the Wuhan virus pandemic in 2019. That might indicate their total economic output might be around the $1 trillion mark, based on exchange rates. Formal economic numbers might be an underestimate.
Indon annual car sales surpassed the 1 million mark only a few years ago but is yet to surpass 1.5 million mark.
For Iran or southern Gooks, annual vehicle sales surpassed 1 million mark long ago, reaching as high as ~1.6 million per annum in the case of Iran and ~1.8 million in the case of southern Gooks at their peaks.
For Tiongs, annual vehicle sales peaked at ~27 million per annum some years ago, then dropped to ~25 million per annum after tightening measures were intro'd by CCP.
Jiuhu car sales, each year, are about 50-56% of that in Thailand or Indon. In the past, before Proton was sold off, the majority of the domestic market was controlled by domestic producers such as Proton and Perodua, ditto for motorcycles. Can't say the same for any other ASEAN member state.
Stinkypura got zero brands. Got poor car ownership rates on par with lao and viets. And 80% live in shitty slum HDB akin to mumbai or chennai slums.
