(An edited version of this article appeared in the New Straits Times print edition, 22 July 2016)
Malaysians are rightly shocked by DAP’s Hew Kuan Yau’s elaborate Facebook post in response to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) arbitration’s ruling against China’s claims to the bulk of the South China Sea. Within hours of the Court’s ruling, Hew announced support for China and asked us to not differ simply because we may hold anti-Communist sentiments.
His unqualified support for China leaves no room for interpretation: he rejects Malaysia’s sovereignty to the disputed territories outright. No grey area, no room for negotiations and settlements, no place for the kind of restrained diplomatic prose we’ve seen in statements issued over the past few days by various Governments including ours.
Let’s be clear what’s at stake here. Malaysia’s claim focuses on 11 maritime features off the coast of Sarawak. All lie within the 200 nautical miles of the continental shelf giving economic rights beneath the sea in accordance to UNCLOS – rights made important because of lucrative oil and gas reserves. On a more base level, the dispute could have an effect on the territorial integrity of Malaysia, considering it is the South China Sea that separates Peninsular and East Malaysia – to yield is to shrink Malaysia in a very real and tangible sense.
China’s counter-assertion, on the other hand, revolves around an alien and ultimately unilateral concept of the “nine dash line” with no basis in international law or conventions; so nebulous is the nine dash line that no two historians or lawyers can agree what China means by it, or even where the coordinates are!
Stating the absurdity of these fanciful dashes on a map is important to underscore the severity of Hew’s treachery. The more moralist amongst us might entertain scenarios where it is acceptable for a citizen to publicly denounce his own country’s foreign policy actions or posturing on ethical grounds. The more internationalist amongst us might believe that people should be free to make up their minds based on facts and not some abrasive hypernationalism. Neither of these apply here.
Rather, what we have is a public figure rejecting an international ruling favourable to Malaysia’s legitimate interests, instead taking a view adopted by the two Chinas – the PRC and the ROC – and practically no one else. It is worth remembering that for China and Hew to be right, the chorus of Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, the United States and other countries who are either claimants or expressly interested parties would have to be wrong. Even to the unacquainted layman, those are pretty steep odds – though evidently not steep enough for Hew to avoid proselytising a position that if enacted to its logical conclusion, would materially weaken Malaysia’s economic, security and territorial interests.
On its own, this would constitute a bizarre and diabolical betrayal by a foolish contrarian. But an analysis of Hew’s statement must include its placement within a broader trend of his party’s dubious patriotism. The charge is this: in DAP’s ranks, there are people for whom the locus of loyalty lies elsewhere than Malaysia – and more specifically to what a journalist termed the “Chinese world” of China, Taiwan and Singapore. This is significant. After all, China is not the only country we have territorial disputes with – presumably Hew wouldn’t have batted an eyelid had the case involved our legal quarrel with Indonesia or the Philippines.
Therein lies DAP’s foundational hypocrisy. For all the protestations of being Malaysian first and all the good stuff, DAP continually lends credence to the notion that it harbors leaders and members whose true longing and belonging is not Malaysia as we know it. Leaders and members for whom Malaysia is a project to be made in someone and somewhere else’s image, instead of a country whose established norms are to be reckoned with on their own terms. How else are we to explain the repeated inability or unwillingness to accord respect to formal traditions, expectations, sensibilities and rules that underpin our society and its polity?
From refusing to wear the songkok or the ‘number one attire’ at appropriate Parliamentary and State Assembly sessions, taking a brazen approach to the Orang Asli’s customs in Keningau, putting an American flag in a Hari Raya e-greeting, to auditioning as a fifth column when your country is in dispute with a foreign superpower, DAP has consistently dismissed decades-long conventions of political leadership. To be sure, we are not fussing over inconsequential mores, but fundamental dos and don’ts that aim to make the best of our society and politics. In their transgressions we see all too frequent examples of DAP at its vulgar worst.
Fortunately, in this case like others, there is no suggestion that many ethnic Chinese Malaysians share Hew’s views – this remains a DAP existential problem. Thank goodness his superman shenanigans are about over. It was mildly amusing until we saw him for what he was. As the Chinese proverb goes, distance tests a horse’s strength. Time reveals a person’s character.
Shahril Hamdan
Umno Youth Executive Committee Member (Chair of the Young Professionals Bureau)
Komen