by Dr. Chen Man Hin

In 1977 when China launched the four modernisations in industry, agriculture, science and technology and military defence by Deng Xiao Peng, China’s GDP (gross domestic product) was only US$253 per person.

In 2006 the GDP per person had risen to about US$2000.

China is now a world economic giant in fourth position after USA, Japan and Germany.

In 2004, the gross domestic product of China was estimated to be US$2 trillion as compared to US$12.5 trillion for USA.

In 2006, its foreign currency reserves was US$1 trillion, most of which are in US bonds. If this was withdrawn, it would trigger a world economic chaos.

World economists predict that China would overtake the USA as the world’s largest economy in 2035 to become the world economic superpower. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cabinet’s inept and irresponsible mishandling of undergraduate Wee Meng Chee’s six-minute rap music video on Negaraku in creating a new and major cause of national dissension especially among the young generation of Malaysians on the occasion of the nation’s 50th Merdeka anniversary has vindicated former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s epithet of a “half-past-six Cabinet”.

It has made more and more Malaysians, particularly the young generation, disgusted with the MCA, Gerakan, Umno and other Barisan Nasional Ministers and leaders who are unable to differentiate between the important from the less important issues.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi confirmed that the Cabinet on Wednesday discussed at length (“kita bincang lama” — Utusan Malaysia) Meng Chee’s public apology to the government and Malaysians for his rap video because it was “an important or big issue”. (Sun)

Nobody can fault the Cabinet for discussing Meng Chee’s Negaraku rap video clip, but when Ministers had no time for bigger and more important national issues, Malaysians have a right to demand to know why the country does not have a more dedicated, competent, professional and more patriotic Cabinet!

The country is at present drowned by a plethora of bigger and more important national issues than Meng Chee’s six-minute Negaraku rap video which should have been the focus of the Cabinet attention last Wednesday, such as:

• The failure of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet to make the 50th Merdeka anniversary really meaningful by “walking the talk” in the past 45 months to deliver the pledge of a clean, incorruptible, efficient, accountable, trustworthy, just, open and democratic administration which is prepared to “hear the truth” from the people;
• The RM4.6 billion Port Klang Free Zone scandal, the breach of Abdullah’s pledge of no mega-billion-ringgit bail-outs and the top-most question among Malaysians – why no one had been arrested or brought to book for the biggest financial scandal in the start of any Prime Minister.
• The shocking comment by the nation’s most famous Inspector-General of Police and Deputy Chairman of the Royal Police Commission, Tun Hanif Omar on Sunday that 40 per cent of the senior police officers could be arrested for corruption without further investigations based “strictly on their lifestyles” and the total lack of action by the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) in the past 27 months to arrest a single one of the 1,400 out of the 3,502 (i.e. 40 per cent) senior police officers from the rank of Assistant Superintendent to Inspector-General of Police since the publication of the Royal Police Commission Report.
• The unilateral, arbitrary and unconstitutional revision of the Merdeka social contract and Malaysia Agreement on the fundamental nation-building principles agreed by the forefathers of the major communities on the attainment of Independence half-a-century ago.
• Malaysia’s continued omission from the World’s Top 500 Universities ranking for the fifth year in succession in the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2007 just released by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
• The constitutional crisis and impasse with the Prime Minister’s nominee for the post of Chief Judge of Malaya unable to get past two meetings of the Conference of Rulers since the retirement of Tan Sri Siti Normah Yaakob on January 5, 2007, raising the question whether the Conference of Rulers is mere rubber stamp or has important check-and-balance role to ensure good governance.

Did the Cabinet on Wednesday have time for these bigger and more important national issues than Meng Chee’s six-minute rap video, and if so, why there had been no proper public accounting of the Cabinet decisions? Read the rest of this entry »