KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 7 — Malaysia will not be able to keep its nose to itself or tell other nations to do the same now that it has a seat in the powerful United Nations Security Council (UNSC), federal opposition lawmaker Lim Kit Siang said today.

Noting the strident criticism by Barisan Nasional (BN) politicians to US vice-president Joseph Biden’s recent tweets concerning Malaysia’s legislative reforms, the DAP parliamentary leader told the federal government that the world is now borderless and that no country can afford to take a “pristine position” of non-interference while seated at the global table.

“Malaysia will be taking a stand on the major international issues on democracy, human rights and international relations whether in the UN Security Council or UN Human Rights Council, which we have no right to do if we take the pristine position that other countries have no right to criticise our position on important issues by equating it as interference in domestic affairs of other countries,” he said in a statement.

The Gelang Patah MP added that government leaders have the right to rebut foreign government criticism by pointing out their faults, but stressed that the tit-for-tat approach would not benefit the country.

Lim reiterated his view that Biden’s tweets were “quite apt”, but said Malaysians should fix its own policy flaws on democracy, human rights and the judicial and legislative institutions before outsiders pointed them out.

“If the criticisms from outsiders are valid and legitimate, let us wake up and correct them instead of going off tangent; but where they are misinformed or misguided, by all means expose them,” he said.

Tweeting under the handle @VP on Friday, Biden commented on Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s appeal against his sodomy conviction, saying it was “a vital chance to make things right” and to “promote confidence” in its judiciary.

“Amid growing US-Malaysia ties, Malaysian govt’s use of legal system & Sedition Act to stifle opposition raises rule of law concerns,” Biden said in a second tweet, referring to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s about-turn on his promise to repeal the colonial-era law.