Both the emirs of the monarchies of the Gulf (Like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar) and the Sultans of Malaysia shared many similarities.
Both were small kingdoms under absolute monarchy rule with economies centered around maritime trading.
As someone from Southeast Asia whom studied local history there, it became clear to me that Malaya was a full-fledged colony; the British stationed entire battalions there, each Sultan has a personal British "Resident Advisor" posted to him (but in effect the actual ruler.
The local police, administration and such were all actively administered by the British.
The British even controlled immigration policy, resulting in a thriving and sucessful Chinese and Indian diaspora.
Everytime I visit Malaysia, I am reminded of the effects of British colonialism: in the cuisine, architecture, in the laws.
Only Thailand among all the kingdoms of South-East Asia resisted colonialism and that was by embarking on aggressive modernization.
Upon independence, only the Sultan of Brunei resisted joining the Malaysian union, whereas the Sultans of Peninsular Malaysia had little choice.
I have never been to the Gulf states, but everything that I have read and researched indicated that the British exercised merely military power in the Gulf but not actual administration.
Why were the Gulf states able to maintain their independence and autonomy as much as possible?
The Gulf was considered the far western fringe of the British Raj, and there will be similarities in governance across the empire, though I regret I cannot say too much in the way of comparing the governance if different regions of the empire.
Things to understand is that these weren't monarchies at the time of colonialism but city states, largely based on maritime trade. The towns which would become the UAE were engaged in what the British called "piracy" - a term we should treat with some measure of suspicion - while others, in particular Bahrain, were more involved in the sale of "pirate goods" and supplies to "pirates".
These states only became defined because of Britain. In 1820 they signed their first treaties with Britain - the British, intent on stopping piracy, sailed gunships from India down to the Gulf and bombarded Ras Al Khaimah, which is today one of the seven emirates of the UAE. With this show of force they gathered the leaders of the local Arab tribes and essentially forced them to sign a new treaty of maritime peace - this and other treaties is what made the UAE known as the "Trucial Coast" during the colonial period. They swore off piracy, and Bahrain signed never to sell pirate goods.
Their independence varied. In many ways the impact of British imperialism in day-to-day life was relatively limited in the "Trucial Coast" and Qatar, beyond the fact that the treaties eroded their independence and forced them to change their economies.
In Bahrain, British imperial rule was quite strongly felt. The British deposed the sitting ruler when he broke treaty obligations by raiding Qatar, burned his fleet, and appointed a pliable 20-year-old as the new ruler. Some 50 years later, they deposed the same man they appointed in favour of his son, when he refused to implement policies to their favour. The British were heavily involved in the creation of the police in Bahrain and Qatar (and probably other countries), and it's in part as a result of this involvement that to this day the Bahraini police forces will employ a large proportion of South Asians and Jordanians (both of whom were involved in the British-run police force).
While on paper British treaty relations only allowed them control of these countries' foreign relations, sometimes they would exert much more control than that. In Bahrain, the British Political Agent virtually ran the show in the early 1920s: he accepted petitions from terrorised serfs and peasants, tinkered with the economy (taking the customs house out of the ruler's control and into British hands), helped see the ruler deposed (the 20-year-old I mentioned earlier) and basically ran the governance of the islands in the first years of the new ruler, the deposed man's son.
When this political agent's time in Bahrain came to an end, he recruited a British "Advisor" to Bahrain's ruler. Although British, he was independent of the British government, and worked foremost for the Bahraini ruling family. Nevertheless, this "Advisor", Charles Belgrave, stayed in Bahrain for 31 years. "Advisor" doesn't quite explain his role: by the time he retired in 1957, he was defacto head of government, head of the judiciary, and chief of police.
So, that's about as much time as I have to go into this right now. What I've tried to show is that the situation was complex - some states were more autonomous than others, but none maintained independence. I haven't talked much about resistance to colonialism - that's certainly an interesting topic - but I wanted to show that the British did have a very strongly-felt presence in the Gulf. That presence was stronger in some places - Bahrain and Oman (though I haven't talked about the latter country) - than in others.
Did a google search and this came up.
I found both the articles and comments interesting.
Pretty sure that there wouldn't been a national highway that ran the entire length of malaya linking all the different cities together.