The Malays, who dislike their fellow Malaysians of Chinese extraction, calling them “pendatang” and “illegals”, denying them equality as citizens, had better look away now.
We were colonised by the Portuguese, then the Dutch and the British. The Ketuanan Melayus must be bristling with pain. Malaysia will soon be ‘Ma-lah-sia Province’, part of the Greater ‘People’s Republic of China’. The writer Howard French called Africa, China’s “second continent”.
Nobody rewrites Malayan/Malaysian history faster than our Umno Baru historians. The pain of seeing Najib Abdul Razak hold a begging bowl in Beijing must confuse the Ketuanan types. Malaysian history will have to be rehashed, yet again.
School children learnt that Parameswara, the renegade Hindu prince from Palembang, was the founder of the Malacca Sultanate. He established Malacca as the most important trading post in the region, frequented by traders from Arabia, India, the Indonesian islands and China, one of the superpowers at the time. The Chinese Admiral, Zheng He (Cheng Ho), was dispatched to Malacca to meet Parameswara.
In 1411, Parameswara visited China to pay homage to the Ming Emperor Yongle (Yung-Lo), explore trading opportunities and establish diplomatic relations; but more importantly, he wanted refuge, to protect Malacca from the two neighbouring empires of Ayudhya (Siam) and Majapahit (Java), which constantly attacked Malacca.
Is Najib a modern-day Malaysian version of Parameswara?
Najib’s closeness to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is no coincidence. He is punishing western leaders for humiliating him. Najib does not care that 1MDB closed down BSI, the 143-year-old Swiss bank and caused Coutts, the Queen’s bank, to be scrutinised.
The Global Risk Insight website reported that “two Chinese firms had launched multi-billion-dollar bailouts of 1MDB assets and had leapfrogged over Japan, Singapore and America to become Malaysia’s largest investor.”
Previously, many Malaysians wondered why the west was reluctant to act against Najib, despite the many paper trails criss-crossing the globe, like a ticker tape parade.
Western leaders need trade to survive, politically. Trade will prop-up their economies. When Malaysian companies invest in rundown parts of London, these areas are regenerated without the use of the taxpayers’ money.
Millionaires from the PRC, Malaysia, Singapore and Russia purchase these expensive London properties and bump up house prices. They force locals out of the area. Politicians don’t really care about affordable and social housing. The same thing occurs in parts of KL, Malacca, Penang, Johor Baru and Ipoh.