evidence: Located at 300km in the south-west of the northern most point of Borneo, Brunei is of modest dimensions: 400,000 inhabitants (one tenth of Singapore's population) and 5,765km² (8 times the surface of Singapore and the equivalent of Delaware), embedded in Sarawak whose Limbang division parts its territory in two. Non-citizensrepresent some 35% of the resident population, divided into: Malaysian Malays (9%), overseas Chinese (8%), other Malaysian indigenous (1%), Philipinos and Indonesians(17%). [...] Slow commercial erosion (17th-18th centuries) gradually deprives Brunei of the means of suzerainty on its riverine dependencies. The internal tensions thus attract foreign predators. In the south first, where the Brookes seize the whole of Sarawak in one half-century (1840-1890). In the north then, where the North-East Borneo Company lays hands in three decades (1877-1904) on Sabah. Saved in extremis by the British from absorption by Sarawak, Sultan Hashim gives up his sovereign rights in 1906.