The street with a name.
MY curiosity was greatly aroused when I read about the walkabout in Petaling Street, KL by such an important person as the ambassador of another country – in order to distribute mooncakes to the traders there.
My instant reaction was: “Trouble.”
Sure enough, someone did make an issue of it. Next thing, it became a diplomatic incident.
His Excellency, Dr Huang Huikang, the ambassador, promptly clarified the purpose of his visit to the place popularly known as Chinatown in KL. His boss in Beijing backed him up saying that, “it was a normal activity for Dr Huang to visit the Chinese community during the Mid-Autumn Festival.” Meanwhile, the Malaysian government would want some official explanation from the ambassador. What did he actually say that would not breach the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961. That would be a fair request, I think.
My take
To be objective, I’m curious to find out the rationale for such a visit which has developed into a row. However, in looking at the issue at hand one has to look at both perspectives.
No explanation would have been necessary on the part of the ambassador if His Excellency had visited some other spot in the city in order to distribute mooncakes. The visit could have been made at some other time, at least a few weeks before or after the rally organised by Perhimpunan Rakyat Bersatu. At the material time, Petaling Street was full of tension as credible rumours were circulating of an impending attack by individuals allied to the so-called ‘Red Shirts’.
It is against this backdrop of tension over the contentious issue of alleged business monopoly by the Chinese traders at Petaling Street and the jealousy between certain groups of Malaysians of different ethnic backgrounds in KL that the diplomatic incident should be viewed.
To be fair, we should also look at the ambassador’s public explanation, its rationale and plausibility. He was, it may be understood, concerned with the security of tourists from his country. There are thousands waiting to come to Malaysia, it is believed. It is his job as the resident envoy to advise his government whether or not to issue an advisory to his people to avoid certain parts of KL just like the USA Embassy and the Australian High Commission had done to their respective nationals.
In that sense, Dr Huang had done the right thing by seeing things on the ground for himself and reporting to headquarters what he had seen and heard on the spot.
If he had reported to his government that Petaling Street was safe for the tourists then he would have done a service to Malaysian tourism. Don’t you think so? Be that as it may, I am somewhat apprehensive when reading that part of the answer given by the ambassador when he was asked by a reporter a hypothetical question: “If there is a massive anti-Chinese riot in Malaysia, will the Chinese government interfere?” His answer: “I could only give a general and standard diplomatic reply without mentioning Malaysia.” He added, thus, “The Chinese government has always pursued peaceful co-existence and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. But if such a situation occurs, and it affects Chinese interests, Chinese people and Chinese enterprises, undermine good diplomatic ties, China will not sit idle.”
Looking like a proviso, the last sentence has the sting. And that worries me a lot. I don’t know about you.
People, particularly Malaysians living in the 1940s, 1950s and the 1960s, may remember that we only established diplomatic relations with China recently; before that, we had problems with the local communists.
Thank God we did not succumb to the influence of an alien ideology. A long story to tell but suffice it to say here that leaders of both nations at the time saw a better alternative to an ideological warfare in the form of trade and active engagement.
Now we are friends though we are ideologically different. This can be a productive relationship depending how we conduct our bilateral relations. We are trading partners: we are sending our tourists to the places of interest in China and they are sending thousands of their tourists to see what we have to offer by way of tourist attractions.
We are buying their goods and they are purchasing ours, a win-win situation.
We exchange ambassadors and allow people-to-people contacts to facilitate a close rapport in terms of trade and cultural understanding without interfering with one another’s internal affairs. That’s the code of conduct that exists between two sovereign states. Keep on doing business with each other.
Their engineers and workers have built our roads and our dams.
On the flip side, however, don’t forget that we also have overlapping claims over certain islands in the South China Sea.
So read all this, not only against the tense background of the preparations for the ‘Red Shirts’ rally on Malaysia Day but also bear in mind the estranged relations between certain communities in KL.
I hope the Petaling Street ambassadorial walkabout was an incident that does not amount to interference with the internal affairs of another country and to a breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Hopefully, it will not come to that.
But then, I don’t really know what is at stake here. I can only guess and can also go wrong in that guess. There may be other things that we ordinary people are not privy to. We are, however, concerned with how the two nations should behave vis a vis the other because we are all stakeholders.
It is said that curiosity killed the cat. A cat gets into trouble because it is a curious animal which can see things in the dark but does not know what it is looking for other than a mouse. It has nine lives so can do away with one. Unlike cats, none of us can fiddle with precious life and while we are still around we want to see these two countries remain friends but would like them to be open in their dealings as much as possible.
Now may we ask if there’s more than meets the eye?
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