New special envoy lashes out at ex-PM's media advisor

Special envoy to China Tiong King Sing said veteran journalist A Kadir Jasin's motives for querying the government's response to recent incursions by Chinese vessels should be questioned.

"Foreign vessels have been suspected of violating our territorial waters from time to time, both during the BN and Pakatan Harapan tenures (as the federal government).

"Kadir's decision to choose this time specifically to question this government's response to these incursions makes one doubt his motives," he said in a statement today.

Tiong (above) was referring to Kadir's post on his Facebook page which suggested that the incursions happened right after Tiong's appointment.

Kadir's claim was, however, inaccurate as Tiong was appointed on April 20 while the alleged incursion was reported by Reuters on April 18.

"This is his (Tiong's) job. Resolve this complicated issue with China. Don't just be happy about your position or reward," wrote Kadir (photo), who was former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's media advisor.

Tiong said the issue has to be handled by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and the Foreign Affairs Ministry and that they should be given space.

"Rest assured, the government continues to seek peaceful ways to issues with an international dimension, with a view toward creating mutual benefit and win-win results for a successful resolution," he added.

Tiong, who is the Bintulu MP, said public attention should instead be focussed on domestic efforts to handle the Covid-19 outbreak.

According to Reuters, Chinese government-owned research vessel Haiyang Dizhi 8, flanked by 10 other Chinese vessels, was spotted 324km off the Malaysian coast, within Malaysia's exclusive economic zone.

Petronas-owned survey vessel West Cappella and two US warships were in the vicinity at the time.

Although the US chided China over its "bullying behaviour" displayed during the incident, Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has chosen a more diplomatic approach.

Hishammuddin assured that "open and continuous" communications were taking place with all relevant parties, including the US and China. - Mkini