Tunku Varadarajan, a professor at the Stern Business School at NYU and research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, is opinions editor at Forbes.com, where he writes a weekly column.

FORBES

CNN's Becky Anderson found out that the connections run a bit deeper, when she spoke to Malaysian royal , Tunku Naquiyuddin and former marshal of the Swedish Royal Court, Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg.

CNN: Your connections between Sweden and Malaysia

With the documents signed, even if the British persuaded the Tunku and his colleagues not to take it through Parliament, once I had published the agreements and the proclamation of independence in the government gazette, Singapore's relationship with Malaysia would change irrevocably.

CNN: MEMOIRS OF LEE KWAN YEW

Teik Ngan may try to look for a friendly party, perhaps a Malay businessman with ties to the government. (Tunku Abdullah, the brother of the current King of Malaysia, is executive chairman of MBf Finance and chairman of MBf Holdings and MBf Capital.) But many such bumiputra entrepreneurs already have problems of their own.

CNN: TOUGH CHALLENGE