{"id":1388,"date":"2018-03-13T04:02:42","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T04:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/?p=1388"},"modified":"2018-03-13T04:02:42","modified_gmt":"2018-03-13T04:02:42","slug":"attack-on-chinese-billionaire-exposes-growing-racial-divide-in-malaysia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/2018\/03\/13\/attack-on-chinese-billionaire-exposes-growing-racial-divide-in-malaysia\/","title":{"rendered":"Attack on Chinese billionaire exposes growing racial divide in Malaysia"},"content":{"rendered":"

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – A volley of insults hurled by ruling party officials in Malaysia at 94-year-old ethnic-Chinese tycoon, Robert Kuok, has exposed a racial and religious divide ahead of elections due by August.\u00a0Leaders from UMNO targeted Hong Kong-based Malaysian billionaire Robert Kuok in the last two weeks, accusing him of funding a majority-Chinese opposition party to overthrow Najib\u2019s government.\u00a0<\/span>The attacks stopped after Kuok, Malaysia\u2019s richest man, threatened legal action against a website he said had cast aspersions on his commitment to democracy. Prime Minister Najib Razak also stepped in to calm the waters. Many in Malaysia\u2019s economically powerful ethnic Chinese community saw the criticism against Kuok as racial dog-whistling ahead of a very close and hotly contested election. A polarized electorate poses risks for Southeast Asia\u2019s third-largest economy. Malaysia\u2019s ethnic minorities may end up with the short end of the stick if this year\u2019s electoral results remains racially split, warned Abdul Rahman Dahlan, strategic communications director for Najib\u2019s coalition. \u201cOf course we\u2019ll be happy we win the election. But it will be better if the support comes from a broad base of support from the communities of all kinds, then everybody\u2019s voice will be represented,\u201d said Abdul Rahman, who is also an UMNO member of parliament told Reuters.<\/p>\n

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION<\/h3>\n

Najib\u2019s United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) has increasingly relied on majority Malay Muslims to stay in power, after minorities deserted the ruling coalition the past two general elections. An election won entirely with the support of ethnic Malays could stall reform of a decades-old race-based affirmative action policy favoring indigenous groups, officials and analysts warn.<\/span><\/h3>\n

The policy, which grew out of 1969 race riots, reserves a large share of government contracts for Malay businesses. It remains in effect, even after it was due to expire in 1990.<\/p>\n

Najib proposed a new economic model soon after taking power in 2009, aimed at speeding Malaysia\u2019s transition to a higher-income, knowledge-based economy, but rolled back some of those plans after a backlash from the Malay-Muslim community.<\/p>\n

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Ethnic Malays and other indigenous groups account for about 69 percent of the population, with Chinese making up 23 percent, and ethnic Indians and other the remainder. Opinion surveys have found indigenous groups robustly support affirmative action policies.<\/p>\n

UMNO has also been courting hardliners on the religious right, seeking support from the Islamist opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), which advocates a strict Islamic penal code that religious minorities fear could infringe their rights.<\/p>\n

Divisions among ethnic and religious groups are intensifying in Malaysia, said the Eurasia Group, whose list of top risks for 2018 includes the growth of identity politics in Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a trend towards a more conservative interpretation of Islam and the key Islamic party PAS will play a significant role during the upcoming election,\u201d Eurasia Group said in a recent research note about Malaysia.<\/p>\n

SUGAR KING<\/h3>\n

Dubbed the\u201cSugar King of Asia\u201d, Kuok became Malaysia\u2019s richest man by expanding a commodities-based business to an international empire that includes the Shangri-la hotel chain, plantations, property development and entertainment.<\/p>\n

He has iconic status in the Malaysian Chinese community.<\/p>\n

\u201cKuok is a successful man, and a true Malaysian,\u201d said 52-year-old Eric Hun at a tea shop in Kuala Lumpur\u2019s Chinatown.\u201cThis kind of comment will win them (UMNO) the Malay votes in the kampung (village). That\u2019s all they want … they stopped caring about us a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ethnic Chinese voted heavily for the opposition camp in the last election in 2013, handing the UMNO-led coalition its first-ever loss of the popular vote. Najib called it a\u201cChinese tsunami\u201d.<\/p>\n

Two years later, thousands of UMNO supporters marched through Chinatown to support Najib, and assert Malay political power threatening to burn down shops in a racially tinged rally that prompted blunt criticism from China\u2019s ambassador to Malaysia.<\/p>\n

With national polls just months away, the attacks on Kuok has strained relations with the Chinese party in Najib\u2019s ruling coalition, the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA).<\/p>\n

The MCA has demanded an apology from Malay leaders who criticized Kuok.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now we\u2019re on extreme ends, with the government on the extreme right and the opposition on the extreme left,\u201d said Kong Len Wei, youth leader at MCA, whose parliamentary seats halved to just seven in the last election.<\/p>\n

Najib tried to calm tensions by saying later in the week that Kuok\u2019s success as an entrepreneur is an inspiration for other entrepreneurs to succeed. The government ordered the news blog that published reports on Kuok to pull down the stories.<\/p>\n

Opposition parties, led by Chinese-based Democratic Action Party (DAP), have also ramped up the racial rhetoric.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Robert Kuok incident is not an isolated incident,\u201d said DAP\u2019s National Political Education Director Liew Chin Tong.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is just another example of the past decade or so in which UMNO survives on manufacturing fear among Malays towards others, in the hope to consolidate Malay support for UMNO.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Najib is still widely expected to win the elections on the back of a rebound in the economy and the support of rural Malay voters. Parliament is also expected to approve a periodic redrawing of electoral boundaries, which critics say would also favor the ruling coalition.<\/p>\n

BRAIN DRAIN<\/h3>\n

Disillusioned ethnic Chinese have been voting with their feet over the past two decades, migrating to neighboring Singapore and Western countries in a troubling brain drain of talent and capital.<\/p>\n

A total of 56,576 Malaysians gave up their citizenship between 2006 and 2016 with over 90 percent of them being ethnic-Chinese, Malaysia\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister said in parliament in 2016, The Star newspaper reported.<\/p>\n

Thirty-one year old Oh, who stayed back in Melbourne after her graduation there said she won\u2019t return to Malaysia unless meritocracy is restored.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the race-based policies that are causing a brain drain and holding back the advancement of the nation,\u201d said Oh, who is a senior designer at a Melbourne-based architectural studio.<\/p>\n

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KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – A volley of insults hurled by ruling party officials in Malaysia at 94-year-old ethnic-Chinese tycoon, Robert Kuok, has exposed a racial and religious divide ahead of elections due by August.\u00a0Leaders from UMNO targeted Hong Kong-based Malaysian billionaire Robert Kuok in the last two weeks, accusing him of funding a majority-Chinese opposition party to overthrow Najib\u2019s government.\u00a0The… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1389,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions\/1389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}