KUALA LUMPUR – The unofficial closed-door meeting between the Barisan Nasional (BN) and the Communist Party of China (CPC) recently was nothing unusual during the UMNO General Assembly to exchange views.
Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor (pix) said the CPC was a ruling party that was invited every year to attend the general assembly even before the era of the administration of UMNO president Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak.
During the meeting, he said the matters discussed were the CPC 30-year Blueprint, 2050 National Transformation Programme (TN50) to be among the top 20 nations in the world, the One Belt One Road (Obor) and the uniqueness of the BN as a multi-racial political party which succeeded in forming Malaysia since achieving independence.
“Matters pertaining to ideology were not touched at all, in fact both sides respected the basis of the formation of their respective parties,”he said in a statement today commenting on the spread of the photograph of the meeting on the internet.
At the meeting held at the Istana Hotel on Dec 7, BN was represented by its executive secretary Datuk Seri Abu Khamis together with leaders of the other BN component parties while the CPC delegation was led by the CPC Translation Bureau head Prof Dr Jia Gaojian.
Tengku Adnan said the CPC was one of the 20 foreign political parties from 16 countries invited to attend the official opening and delivery of the Umno President’s Policy Speech at the general assembly.
“Invitations extended to foreign political parties to attend the Umno General Assembly were nothing new, on the other hand, they had been made each year and the dialogues between the BN or any of its component parties with the foreign political parties were nothing unusual.
“Besides the dialogue between the BN and CPC, dialogues and closed-door meetings with other parties had also been held several times during the general assembly this year as well as the previous years,” he said.
Cordial relations between the BN and CPC began in 1974 during the administration of Tun Abdul Razak, in fact on Sept 23 1994, during the administration era of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the secretary-general then, Tan Sri Mohamad Rahmat had made a visit to meet CPC general-secretary Jiang Zemin.
— Bernama
Stop introducing every other headline as BOMBSHELL. They very rarely are. This is most likely the last we have heard of this news item.
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