Robert Kuok: Chinese the dominant force to build Southeast Asia
The billionaire says this was despite the Chinese having been ill-treated and looked upon derogatorily, including in Malaysia.
(FMT) – Malaysia’s richest man Robert Kuok has credited the Chinese for building up modern Southeast Asia after European colonisation opened the region for employment and business opportunities.
The 94-year-old, who now resides in Hong Kong said this was despite the Chinese often being maltreated and looked down upon.
“Whether you go to Malaysia, Sumatra or Java, the locals call you Cina – pronounced Chee-na – in a derogatory way,” he said in an excerpt from a new book titled “Robert Kuok, A Memoir”.
The excerpt was published in the South China Morning Post today as part of its serialisation featuring various parts of the book.
Kuok said as the Europeans brought a semblance of law and order to the region, and opened up rubber, mining and trading operations, millions of Chinese ventured south in a “tsunami of human migration.”
“It was the Chinese who helped build up Southeast Asia. The Indians also played a big role, but the Chinese were the dominant force in helping to build the economy,” said Kuok, whose net worth was reported to be US$11.4 billion (RM50 billion) by Forbes magazine in March.
Kuok recalled a brainstorming seminar he attended in Jakarta sponsored by Indonesia’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies under the new rule of president Suharto who took power in 1967.
He said among the thirty people around an oval table were Ghazali Shafie from Malaysia and Devan Nair from Singapore who would later become its president.
He said he had urged those gathered there to use the overseas Chinese to build the economy.
He differed with stands that Indonesia should bring in multinationals from the world to bring up the nation.
He told the seminar, which he later found was being recorded, that the Chinese were entrepreneurs blessed with business brains, though many of them lacked financial backing.
Kuok however added that he also warned about the need for watchdog institutions with bite, which later went unheeded by Indonesia and most other countries in the region.
“The decent Chinese have helped to build up Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, and made these countries what they are today,” he said.
“But you also had the rise of the unscrupulous and ruthless Chinese, who in turn have devastated many parts of Southeast Asia.”
He said they were allowed to “wreak havoc” because national leaderships were weak.
“Singapore had the same number of Chinese crooks, but you try and find one today. They are all hidden, camouflaged, or dormant,” he said.
“The crooks were held on steel leashes by two hands: Lee Kuan Yew’s left hand and Lee Kuan Yew’s right hand. With the unsavoury elements under control, look what Singapore has been able to accomplish by harnessing the energies of the overseas Chinese,” he said.
