KUALA LUMPUR: China will not tolerate misbehaviour involving its nationals in Malaysia, says its chief diplomat here.
China’s Ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian (pic) said the embassy received several reports on tourists who did not respect the sensitivities of Malaysians.
Saying this caused much embarrassment to the Chinese government, he remarked: “The Chinese have a civilisation dating back 5,000 years and we know how to behave properly and not offend others.”
Bai Tian said Chinese tourists spent RM12.3bil over the past year in Malaysia, and so the embassy was extra concerned about such misdemeanours.
He cited an incident in Sabah where tourists from China acted insensitively in front of a mosque, which led to them being ticked off by local tourism officials.
“What the Malaysian authorities did was right. On our part, we will educate our tourists to behave properly in Malaysia, ” said the envoy at a forum on China’s Belt Road Initiative (BRI) organised by the Malaysian Youth Council and Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka here yesterday.
Bai Tian spoke on the many job opportunities under the BRI cooperation with Malaysia and how it would be the catalyst for further trade growth between both countries and the world.
On the chaos in Hong Kong, he said the rule of law had been set aside with the so-called pro-democracy protesters turning Hong Kong into an “abyss of chaos”.
On the Muslim Uighur issue, he said one should consider China’s policy of allowing them to have more children and the 15 years of free education which was not offered to others.
China has been under international fire for its alleged persecution of Muslim Uighurs, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily from China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.
“There are 14 million Muslims in Xinjiang, with 40,000 mosques and 26,000 imams.
“Our Constitution allows for all religions, and freedom not to have a religion.
“Who was heading the 23 countries to criticise us over the Uighurs? The US and its allies.
“Sixty-six countries, including Muslim countries, stood up and refuted the Western accusations, ” said Bai Tian.
The envoy also lambasted the “debt trap” theory against China which gave loans to Asian countries.
“This is all a Western fabrication for their own economic and political agenda, ” he said.
The forum was held in conjunction with the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Malaysia and China.
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