PROPERTY
For example, party vice-president and Human Resources minister Dr Fong Chan Onn was reported by Sin Chew Jit Poh yesterday as 'revealing' that Gerakan did attempt to bid for the Nanyang Press Holdings with an offer price of RM 6.50 per share.
The former economics professor also said Gerakan president Dr Lim Keng Yaik had earlier met Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad personally to suggest to the latter that since MCA already controlled the English-language daily The Star, it should not also take over the Chinese-language Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press newspapers.
According to Fong, the Prime Minister told Lim the matter was best left to the free market to decide. Fong, a Ling loyalist, also insinuated that Gerakan was a bitter loser.
If what Fong said is correct and true, the conversation or at least the essential portion of it, between Mahathir and Lim must have been related to Fong and MCA leaders by Mahathir himself, barring the possibility of the conversation being bugged by MCA spies.
It is clear from what Fong had said that the prime minister agreed to MCA's takeover of Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press, despite Gerakan's objection. If Mahathir had already agreed, then why did his deputy Abdullah Badawi make 'noises' that have been construed, particularly by Gerakan leaders and MCA's dissidents, as against the MCA's takeover?
Could it be that Mahathir needs to control the Chinese-language newspapers so desperately that he even dismissed objections from Gerakan, MCA's dissidents, and Abdullah Badawi whose Home Ministry controls the police's Special Branch, said to be one of the most efficient intelligence-gathering and assessment networks in the world?
If that is the case, then the instinctive conclusion of the ordinary man in the streets is right: that it was the prime minister himself who masterminded the MCA's takeover of Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press, to be later 'coordinated' and 'synergised' with Tiong Hiew King's Sin Chew Jit Poh.
Timber tycoon
The timber and media tycoon from Sarawak, in his interview with Yazhou Zhoukan, an international Chinese-language weekly he himself owns, not only admitted that he was once interested in taking up a 51 percent stake in the Nanyang Holdings, but also did not dismiss any future interests in the now MCA-controlled Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press.
While the interview clearly shows Tiong sharing the anti-Western 'Asian values' of Mahathir, the Yazhou Zhoukan is popularly perceived to be taking a strong and consistent pro-Beijing line on news and opinions relating to US-Sino relations.
However, MCA's Fong did not stop at Gerakan alone. On June 10, he was reported by China Press as saying that the 'main reason' for MCA to takeover the Chinese-language newspapers was to prevent Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press from 'falling into the hands of bumiputra interests'.
Earlier, the National Publicity Bureau of MCA, directed by former deputy Finance minister Wong See Wah had already suggested that 'a business group controlled by another race', among others, had competed with MCA's Huaren Holdings for the control of the two Chinese newspapers.
It is also interesting to note that the adviser of the Bintulu Federation of Chinese Associations, Tiong King Sing (no relation to media tycoon Tiong) was reported on Sunday by The Star as urging the Chinese community to support Huaren Holdings' takeover.
King Sing, who is also the BN/Snap member of parliament for Bintulu, said, "... if it (the MCA) does not take over the papers and they fall into the wrong hands, the MCA leadership would be blamed endlessly for not having done anything to prevent it".
As the 'another race' factor in this controversy could not be Samy Vellu or George Soros, it must be coming from those associated with Umno or some of Umno's personalities. But as Fong had already suggested that Dr Mahathir had agreed to MCA's, not Gerakan's takeover, could it be that these 'bumiputra interests' are within Umno but are anti-Mahathir or at least not aligned to Mahathir?
What type of 'bumiputra interests' the powerful Umno president would reject in favour of a faction of MCA? What makes Ling's faction in MCA so important to the Umno president that he had to take such a great political risk for himself?
A bogey?
Or are MCA and Fong merely using a bogey to gain support and to discredit their opponents as 'traitors of the Chinese race'? But then, Umno itself did once control a Chinese-language newspaper, the Shin Min Daily News, through the Fleet Group (formerly known as Fleet Holdings) which also owned the English-language the New Straits Times and the Malay-language Berita Harian then.
According to political economist Edmund Terence Gomez in his book Politics in Business - Umno's Corporate Investments (Forum Enterprise, Petaling Jaya, 1990), 'in June, 1985, New Straits Times Press (NSTP) acquired a 70 percent stake in Shin Min Daily News (M) Sdn Bhd, the third largest Chinese-language newspaper in Malaysia', and 'in December 1988, NSTP increased its stake in Shin Min Daily News to 89.11 percent'. (p.62) NSTP was the media business arm of Umno's Fleet Group.
However, the then 'third largest Chinese-language newspaper in Malaysia' ended up in financial and editorial disorder due to declining readers and subscribers as well as the inability to recruit and employ Chinese-educated reporters and editorial staff. Shin Min no longer exists today.
Meanwhile, opposition to the takeover has extended to include the possibility of Tiong Hiew King's participation. According to news reports in Nanyang Siang Pau on Sunday, the influential United Chinese Schools Committees' Association (Dongzong) and United Chinese Schools Teachers' Association (Jiaozong) 'firmly and uncompromisingly oppose the plan, if any, of Tiong Hiew King to takeover Nanyang Press Holdings and monopolise the control of Chinese-language newspapers'.
It is interesting to note that Tiong, being a public patron of Chinese culture and values, is being chastised by Chinese school committees and teachers on an anti-monopoly ground.
JAMES WONG WING ON is a former member of parliament (1990-1995). He read economics and political science at the Monash University in Australia from 1983 to 1986.