KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 19 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today said he sometimes make “nasty” remarks and cannot always be nice.
The prime minister said he had during his past visit to China highlighted the existence of colonialism in other forms now.
“I was in China, somebody talks about Chinese wanting to dominate, etc.
“Well, they can talk about that, but it’s not necessary for me to just agree. I pointed out that there are other forms of colonialism, including economic colonialism,” he said in a dialogue session at Oxford Union in the UK.
Dr Mahathir was asked if he was of the view that Malaysia now has to negotiate its “independence” from China, similar to how the country negotiated its freedom from the British colonial masters.
It was also pointed out to him that the Malaysian government under Dr Mahathir’s leadership had last year intervened in a number of projects undertaken by China’s companies and also his own remarks about neo-colonialism.
When asked further if he thinks that Malaysia now has to stand up to China, Dr Mahathir merely said: “I have to express my opinion, I cannot always be saying nice things to everybody, sometimes I say nasty things and they have a right to say nasty things to me.”
Last August 20 in a press briefing during an official visit to China, Dr Mahathir reportedly said he supported free trade as long as it was fair, noting that it was undesirable to have neo-colonialism owing to countries being at different stages of development.
In an interview last October with British broadcaster BBC’s HARDTalk programme host Zeinab Badawi, Dr Mahathir denied accusing China of imposing debt colonialism on Malaysia, clarifying that he had merely said there were other forms of colonialism such as “neo-colonialism” which was coined by former Indonesian president Sukarno.
When asked if he was worried about China’s new form of colonisation, Dr Mahathir had said in the October interview that the Chinese was still very much interested in investing within Malaysia.
During the dialogue session yesterday in Oxford Union, Dr Mahathir who is known for his frank views also maintained that nations in their diplomatic relations sometimes had to make remarks that are not pleasing.
“Well, we consider Australia as a friendly country. Of course like all countries, sometimes they say things which are not palatable to us, sometimes we say things that are not palatable to them.
“I mean while you are friends, sometimes you have a need to tell a friend that ‘you have done something wrong’. If you tolerate everything that somebody does because he is a friend, then you have no friend,” he said.
He was asked to comment how he viewed Malaysia and Australia’s cooperation in the future at both the bilateral and multilateral level.
