by Kong See Hoh The Sun 28 May 2013
PETALING JAYA (May 28, 2013): Former deputy higher education minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah borrowed the expression “Liu Bei borrows Jingzhou” (… never to return) from the classic Chinese novel Romance Of The Three Kingdoms to illustrate the reason for the Chinese response when MCA “loaned out” Gelang Patah in the 13th general election.
He said the Chinese anger over the move was one of the reasons for MCA and Gerakan’s electoral rout that forced both to stay out of the cabinet.
“I know the Chinese saying (Liu Bei borrows Jingzhou) means borrowing something without ever returning it.
“Regardless of whether Chinese voters agreed with DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang, they felt the MCA chief himself should have taken on Lim in Gelang Patah,” Saifuddin, who is an Umno supreme council member, told China Press in an interview published today.
He declined to comment when it was pointed out that there is only one Chinese minister and one Chinese deputy minister now.
Instead, he used the Chinese expression “Liu Bei borrows Jingzhou” to describe how the Chinese felt.
He said some Chinese friends told him they were angry because they deemed it a kind of setback when MCA unconditionally “loaned” Gelang Patah to a Barisan Nasional component party to contest.
He said for the Chinese, to give Lim due respect has nothing to do with whether they support DAP or not.
So by “loaning out” Gelang Patah when Lim parachuted into the constituency, the Chinese community’s interpretation= was that the party had chickened out, he said.
He said the Chinese stress respect and believed MCA should not have given the seat to Umno even though the latter fielded a heavyweight (former Johor mentri besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman).
Saifuddin said MCA suffered another serious setback also because of other issues such as fair competition in the corporate world.