by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Tuesday, 14th May 1991:
Ling Liong Sik should lead a MCA delegation to meet Malay newspaper editors to ask them to stop using the word ‘Chinatown’ to describe the Malaysian Chinese Cultural City to prevent the arousal of communal feelings.
The top MCA leadership now says that the MCA President, Datuk Ling Liong Sik, will meet the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, after his return from abroad tomorrow to explain the MCA’s stand on the Malaysian Chinese Cultural City.
If what Liong Sik had said earlier is true, that top UMNO leaders has ‘discussed, understood and accepted’ the Malaysian Chinese Cultural City proposal, then there is no need for such a meeting with Dr. Mahathir.
The people just cannot understand why on this issue of the Malaysian Chinese Cultural City, top MCA leaders are making so many ‘untrue and misleading statements’ which are exposed on after another by UMNO Ministers.
MCA leaders complain that the Malaysian Chinese Cultural City proposal had been distorted and twisted by political opportunists into a ‘Chinatown’?
If the Malaysian Chinese Cultural City had been distorted and twisted into a ‘Chinatown’ to enable the arousal of Malay communal feelings, then the top MCA leadership must bear a great responsibility by the incompetent manner they had handled this issue.
It is about two weeks now since the Bahasa Malaysia newspapers had been using the word ‘Chinatown’ to describe the Malaysian Chinese Cultural City – which has created even more misunderstanding among the Malays leading to one extremist call that apart from this MCA ‘Chinatown’, in all the other parts of the country the Chinese signboards should be removed.
However, the MCA leadership had not taken the trouble to meet Malay editors to explain to them that MCA had never intended to propose the building of a ‘Chinatown’ and to ask them to stop using the word ‘Chinatown’ in the Malay newspapers to ensure that Malay communal feelings are not inflamed by the impression that there is an attempt to create a ‘Little China’ in the country.
Liong Sik should lead a top MCA delegation to meet the Malay newspaper editors to ask them to stop using the word ‘Chinatown’ for the Malaysian Chinese Cultural City. Every time the word ‘Chinatown’ is used in the Bahasa Malaysia newspapers, more communal feelings are being inflamed.