The half-built development in Johor, meant for Chinese buyers who never came, sat mostly empty for years. Then an American investor turned part of it into an experiment in a different kind of country altogether, and in July 2026, that experiment collided with one of Malaysia’s oldest foreign policy positions.
What Network School actually is
Network School is a private co-living and co-working community built at Forest City by Balaji Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer of Coinbase and a onetime partner at Andreessen Horowitz. It began in September 2024 as a 90 day trial with around 128 participants. By 2025 it had grown into a permanent programme with hundreds of members from more than 70 countries, according to Sinar Daily’s timeline of the controversy. Monthly fees run between roughly USD 1,500 and 3,000.
The idea behind it comes from Srinivasan’s 2022 book, “The Network State.” His pitch is that an online community can form first, prove itself through shared purpose, then crowdfund physical land somewhere in the world, and eventually seek recognition as a sovereign entity in its own right. Forest City became the first serious attempt to build that idea in the physical world. In April 2026, Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo visited the campus to discuss AI cooperation and digital economy opportunities, and later took down a social media post showing him posing with Srinivasan, according to MalaysiaNow.
Forest City’s background
Forest City sits on reclaimed land along the Strait of Johor, close to the Second Link connecting to Singapore’s Tuas. Built by China-based Country Garden Pacificview and launched in 2016, the US$100 billion project was originally planned to house 700,000 people across four man-made islands by 2035. Only 15 percent of the project has been completed to date.
The development ran into major obstacles early on due to environmental concerns, China’s 2017 capital controls, and visa policy changes after Mahathir Mohamad returned to power in 2018 that made residency harder for foreign buyers. The Covid-19 pandemic deepened Forest City’s reputation as a ghost town.
The project got a boost in August 2023, when PM Anwar designated Forest City a Special Financial Zone, offering tax incentives to companies and family offices. By April 2026, Country Garden Pacificview said Forest City was home to nine family offices, with more expected.
Johor’s former executive councillor for investments, Lee Ting Han, told Bloomberg that the growing number of international participants coming through Network School had brought an energy to the area that had been missing. Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo and his deputy Wilson Ugak Kumbong visited Network School on April 17.
according to a social media post by cryptocurrency collective Superteam Malaysia
An anonymous post, then a state investigation
Concerns about the community first surfaced in October 2025, after Israeli content creator Nuseir Yassin, known as Nas Daily, appeared in a promotional video filmed at Network School, prompting some lawmakers to question how he had entered the country. Yassin has previously said he entered Malaysia in 2022 through Johor Bahru via Singapore using a Saint Kitts and Nevis passport, despite the country’s ban on Israeli nationals. The video has since been deleted from X, per Asia News Network.
The issue resurfaced with more force the day before the Johor state election, when the activist group Malaysia Protest 4 Palestine, known as MP4P, posted on Instagram accusing Network School of serving as a gathering place for Israeli entrepreneurs entering the country on second passports. MP4P’s spokesman told the Straits Times, cited by Asia News Network, that the group had researched and simplified an issue that had circulated online for months, which is why this particular post caught wider attention. The same reporting says MP4P also alleged Network School was recruiting entrepreneurs to help build a “settlement” in Johor, and that applicants were screened with questions about Israel, military technology, and political views.
Johor authorities moved quickly. By July 15, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had said publicly that any Israeli nationals discovered at the campus would be deported immediately, a position reported by New Straits Times and Sinar Daily. The Immigration Department confirmed it had inspected 266 foreigners from 40 countries tied to the community. The Sun Daily reported that 256 held Social Visit Passes and 10 held Professional Visit Passes under the Nomad category, spread across the US, Russia, Australia and India, and that all travel documents checked were in order.
Srinivasan responded on July 16 with a post on X titled “Should the global tech community continue investing in Malaysia?”, addressed directly to PM Anwar. He dismissed MP4P as an non-credible source posting for attention rather than a serious accuser, and posted photos of Network School members holding up their passports during the inspection. He offered to publicly commit to abiding by Malaysian law and respecting the country’s sovereignty in exchange for written assurance the community could keep operating, and named the scale of global capital watching the outcome, citing investors and companies including Google, Amazon, Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain Capital, per NRI Pulse.
MP4P kept up pressure after that response. In a July 17 post, coinciding with Johor’s stop-operations order, the group escalated its framing beyond the passport allegation. It accused Srinivasan of undisclosed ties to Israeli companies and described his approach to Forest City as a “Tech Zionism” project, treating land as something to be bought and rebuilt into private startup cities. The post compared this to remarks attributed to Jared Kushner about redeveloping Gaza’s waterfront, arguing both treated land acquisition as separate from the people and identity tied to it.
and closed with a rejection of what it called economic gain built on ethnic cleansing and dispossession of Palestinians.
That same day, Johor Menteri Besar Onn Hafiz Ghazi ordered a stop to operations at one of Network School’s two premises, after finding it lacked a valid business licence and that an approved office space had allegedly been used as classrooms without proper permission, per ChinaTechNews and TheRakyatPost. Srinivasan responded by freezing a planned RM500 million expansion, saying the project had already put over RM100 million into Forest City without government funding, and repeated his request for a meeting with Anwar to negotiate a memorandum of understanding.
Licence revoked, then a move to Kazakhstan
Johor did not settle for a temporary stop-operations order. Authorities revoked Network School’s business licence entirely, with the Iskandar Puteri City Council issuing a 24-hour notice to cease all activities, according to MalaysiaNow. Days later, Srinivasan announced on X that Network School had signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Kazakhstan to establish a new flagship campus there, describing it as a hub for “techno-optimism” with expedited visas and streamlined relocation for members.
From a licensing dispute to a diplomatic incident
The story moved beyond Forest City once one specific case was confirmed. Checks eventually turned up an individual holding dual US-Israeli citizenship who had entered Malaysia on his US passport. Once officials confirmed the Israeli citizenship, he was asked to leave, according to Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan, quoted by both Malay Mail and The Star.
On July 23, Malay Mail and The Star both reported that the US State Department had summoned Malaysia’s ambassador in Washington, Tan Sri Muhammad Shahrul Ikram Yaakob, to explain the country’s position. Mohamad Hasan said the ambassador told the department the non-recognition policy was longstanding, not a new decision made in response to this incident. Eight Democratic members of Congress, Greg Landsman, Josh Gottheimer, Jimmy Panetta, Dan Goldman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jared Moskowitz, Brad Sherman and Jake Auchincloss, had already written to Secretary of State Marco Rubio objecting to the expulsion and calling for a review of US economic and security ties with Malaysia, including a threat to cut funding for the International Military Education and Training programme for the Malaysian military, according to Al Jazeera.
PM Anwar Ibrahim reiterated that Malaysia would keep barring Israeli citizens despite objections from members of the US Congress.
framing the policy as part of Malaysia’s broader stance against the Gaza genocide and in defence of Palestinian rights.
“That will not deter us. They may issue threats, but I will firmly defend the rights of the Malaysian people and uphold the government’s decision to continue prohibiting the entry of any Israeli national into Malaysia,” he added.
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‘I gave up my family to pursue my dreams’ Shares 34 YO M’sian woman
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