KUALA LUMPUR: With the discovery of more contagious variant of Covid-19 worldwide, recently, it has become even more pertinent and necessary for Chinese community in Malaysia to strengthen its unity, and to remain resilient to face many uncertainties and challenges ahead, in 2021, said Tan Sri T.C Goh, the President of the Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong).
“In 2021, we must also join forces with fellow Malaysians from other communities to fight the pandemic, and to look out for each other with great empathy and love. We Malaysians must better unite and to strive for political stability, racial harmony and a speedy economic recovery,” he added.
In his 2021 New Year message issued here today, he acknowledged that 2020 has been an extremely challenging, bitter and frustrating year for the entire world. He lamented that this was especially true, when medical experts and medical workers throughout the world were desperately fighting the deadly pandemic, situations in certain parts of the world were further impacted by political conflicts and wars.
The global economy and stock markets have been badly hit by the pandemic, as well as uncertainties amidst power transition in the United States of America, following the US President Donald Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden in the US presidential election 2020 held on November 3.
“Meanwhile, China under the stewardship of President Xi Jinping has achieved remarkable result in poverty eradication where, it was recently reported that nearly 100 million Chinese have been lifted out of poverty since 2013; this admittedly augurs well for the Chinese government’s noble aspiration to transform China into a moderately prosperous or ‘xiaokang’ society,” said Goh who is also the President of the Federation of Chinese Associations Sabah (FCAS).
An astute businessman of a wide-range of businesses, Goh also reckoned that under the new development, the ongoing ‘trade war’ between China and US may return to the negotiating table in 2021, and things may turn around.
Touching on Malaysia, he said with the ushering in of 2021 the nation has ‘officially’ bid farewell to the apparition of “Vision 2020” which was once peddled by a certain politician; and just when the country was eagerly looking forward to embrace the “Shared Prosperity Vision 2030” which replaced the ‘failed vision’, such an eagerness was unfortunately frustrated by the devastating pandemic.
He reiterated that Malaysia’s present woeful situation was best depicted by the three Chinese Han characters of the year, in descending order of – ‘Yi’ (疫 yì), which translates to “epidemic, disease,” followed by ‘luàn’ (乱) which means “chaotic”, and ‘kùn’ (困) which means “stranded”. These characters were unveiled in the Malaysia Annual Selection of Chinese Characters which was jointly organized by Huazong and Han Culture Centre Malaysia, recently.
He said, such a depressing scenario has prompted him to recently urge the government and Malaysians across the board, to make some adjustment to the manner they conduct their affairs in the four key sectors of politics, economy, culture and education, in order to better cope with and navigate out of the current devastating situation.
Noting that the implementation of Movement Control Order (MCO), of various levels, by the government to contain the pandemic has severely impacted the people’s life, he acknowledged that the spike in Covid-19 cases in various parts of the country of late, at four figures daily, was a worrisome trend which could further devastate the current dire situation.
“It may lead to further downgrade of our economic ratings, and trigger off another wave of business closures, massive retrenchment of workers, and inflict further hardship to a vast majority of the people who are already struggling to cope and to stay afloat,” he warned.
He thus hoped that the government could step up effort to expedite the arrival of Covid-19 vaccines in the country, so as to better contain the pandemic, and more importantly to safeguard the country and the people from the new and more contagious variant of Covid-19 which was recently detected in some countries.
And once again, Goh implored politicians from both sides of the divide to refrain from engaging in political farce and power struggle, and to start focusing on the people’s plights and interests.
Meanwhile, he acknowledged that the pandemic and the many challenges and restrictions imposed by the MCO has compelled Chinese organizations in the country to adopt a new approach of conducting their affairs via online (Zoom conferences) as well as offline (in person), which he considered a positive trend that is worth expanding.-pr/BNN
