YOURSAY ‘This level of venting is expected. We just got to bear with it.’

Irate Chinese tourists shunning Malaysia

Appum: At this point, we should not be too worried about Chinese tourists coming or boycotting our destination. This is a natural social and psychological reaction to horrific tragedies which no one plans for or wants it to happen.

We should now reflect on the levels of competency, training, leadership, crisis management, and quality of staff in all our civil departments. We should start to seriously uphold values like corruption-free, accountability, responsibility and transparency in our agencies.

Since Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s days, Malaysia has been showing off its great highways, airports, administrative centre (Putrajaya), and the Twin Towers. Transient travellers are sufficiently impressed, thinking Malaysia must have made it.

But they don't know the highway operators are cronies and the contracts are lopsided. The list can go on. It takes a tragic and huge crisis such as this to bring out Malaysia's weaknesses.

Quigonbond: The harsh treatment from the Chinese families is probably unwarranted as they've gone beyond reason to sheer explosion of anger. But that's the price you pay for having a dubious record to start off with.

This incident has been a plus point for acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein who has faced enormous brickbats from handling of Bersih to Sabah intrusion. It isn't a magnificent job to be sure, but it is appearing to be a step in the right direction.

That's what happens when there is enough international media to push one so far back that one has to stop playing to the Malay gallery and do what is right.

The international community should be congratulated. It shows that when you bear down hard enough on a country, even the most corrupted leaders can change course albeit briefly.

Spinnot: Mainland Chinese are the top spenders in cities like Paris, London and Hong Kong. According to a United Nations report, by 2015 there will be 100 million mainland Chinese tourists going abroad.

Malaysia has to compete not only with neighbouring countries like Thailand to earn more tourist renminbi but also European countries and United States which have eased their visa requirements for mainland Chinese travellers.

Hopefully after the truth about MH370 is known, this thing will blow over and mainland Chinese tourists will be back in Malaysia.

1BIGF: We are small country, not so high-tech. China has to understand that. I believe Malaysia has done its best. If one cannot find evidence, how can we say anything? If we say crashed but later didn’t and vice versa, how then?

Yes, there were some mistakes made here and there. We have to pray and hope. My condolences to all. I hope Malaysia and the whole world will learn from this.

Tan Kim Keong: This level of venting is expected. Distemper among the Chinese will vanish soon. We just got to bear with accusations hurled at us.

That said, the heads of RMAF (Royal Malaysian Air Force) and DCA (Department of Civil Aviation) must roll for dereliction of duty.

Clever Voter: Repercussions on international trade will probably be impacted as a result of what has taken place.

China buys a lot of what we produce, this cannot be guaranteed as long as we don't improve, or be in line with international standards.

It would be ironic if we are punished by external parties for the sort of sins committed by this rotten regime on its very own society.

Why make crash finding only after 12 days?

Anonymous_1395111695: It is really sad to see all these top civil servants, the security and military chiefs being torn to pieces by their own people.

What has now happened is that the people have no qualms about criticising these people who exhibited such incompetence and have begun to lose the fear they had of the authorities.

For far too long the Malaysians have been cowed with sedition, selective prosecution and persecution. It bodes well for the country when the citizens question the people they have elected and their civil servants without fear.

Let us hope that this sad tragedy will bring about real transformation in governance of the country. The long-suffering Malaysians need this.

PM Najib Razak, are you ready to bring about this and earn yourself a respectable place in the history of Malaysia?

Opah: Now that the incompetence of the Malaysian government and its institutions has been laid bare, the only objective left seems to be to blame the pilot or pilots and link them somehow to Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.

This has led to a series of lies, stretched out over 18 days. The government's problem is that no one believes them any more, even if it tries to tell the truth.

Progressive: We did screw up nice and proper in the first few days of the MH370 disappearance. The RMAF chief should be fired. Hishammuddin Hussein should resign as defence minister.

But things got better after that. PM's daring approach to take the bull by the horn and make the announcement despite no physical evidence and announced it in a somber mood with well-thought-through words displayed leadership of the highest quality.

Even Jim Clancy of CNN was full of praise for Najib and our handling of the situation. My deep, deep condolences to the family. May God bless their souls.

Dr Suresh Kumar: Let's give credit where is due. After much fumbling and contradictions during the first few days, where the Umnoputras laid bare for the whole wide world to see their incompetency and lack of transparency, Hishammuddin has so far done well in handling this national tragedy.

However, I still have my doubts and feel that this government is still hiding something extraordinary from the public and the media. I came to this conclusion after analysing the various statements, denial, delays, press reports from various countries from day one of the press conference.

Just hope the black box is recovered as soon as possible so that the truth would be revealed to all.

Gen2: One airline industry commentator on CNN put it very nicely. This is a crisis which needs technical answers and technical expertise.

There is no place for politicians posturing in front of media cameras since they cannot answer technical questions.

The above is a selection of comments posted by Malaysiakini subscribers. Only paying subscribers can post comments. Over the past one year, Malaysiakinians have posted over 100,000 comments. Join the Malaysiakini community and help set the news agenda. Subscribe now .