SHAH ALAM, April 2 — Malaysians can emulate the industriousness of China’s citizens who helped make their country technologically advanced in just a few short decades, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said last night.
Dr Mahathir, who has professed to being a fan of the Japanese work ethic, noted that China is now far ahead of Malaysia in terms of new technology.
“You must remember that not so very long ago, that China was a developing country with very poor capacity to produce anything.
“But because they are very hardworking, they want to develop their country, as soon as the government allows them, they very quickly master all the new technologies,” he said during a late-night question-and-answer session at the “Rise of the Asian Tiger convention here.
The prime minister was responding to Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) student council chief Muhammad Aznur Syah Azman who asked Dr Mahathir if he felt China could also be a role model for Malaysia in terms of policy-making, aside from learning from Japan.
“Today, they can send a satellite to the moon. I saw their fighter planes flying in formation perfectly, they can build their own fighter planes. Why?
“They were behind us before, but now they are ahead of us.
“The reason is they chased after this objective to be a fully-developed country, a rich country which nobody can threaten or look down upon. So we can do the same if we follow China,” Dr Mahathir added.
He said Malaysia has the potential to succeed too, using the example of how a Chinese company had partnered local carmaker Proton to produce the popular SUV X70.
“So we can do, but we don’t want to do it… but if we have the correct culture, we will pursue knowledge and expertise until we can master it by putting in effort repeatedly,” he said.
During the brief question-and-answer session, Dr Mahathir shared the stage with Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman and Economic Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Azmin Ali.
Earlier in a speech, Dr Mahathir drew on his own experience and observations when saying that the three values of being hardworking combined with a mastery of knowledge and integrity were crucial for success.
Dr Mahathir had shared how he had entered university to study medicine with lower grades than his peers, and how he had made more effort to achieve success.
He related how he re-read an entire textbook at least 10 times and how it had resulted in him topping an examination in a subject in his first year, expressing his belief that Malaysia could also be a developed nation if its citizens work hard.
Dr Mahathir — who had in his first tenure as prime minister introduced the Look East policy with an eye to learning from Japan — also spoke of how the Japanese’s desire to avoid shame from failure led to them being hardworking to achieve success.
“That’s why when the West succeeded in a field, they also entered the same field and used their own efforts to master the knowledge and skill and they are able to succeed until they surpass the success of the West,” he said, also expressing admiration in how Japan rebuilt itself as a war-torn country.
Dr Mahathir was speaking at the “Rise of the Asian Tiger” convention jointly organised by the Akademi Harimau Asia, Idris Association, the Youth and Sports Ministry, and UiTM.
Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan were previously dubbed as Asian Tigers, and had experienced rapid economic growth in a phenomenon known as the “Asian Miracle”.
Malaysia and three other countries ― Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand ― were previously known as Tiger Cub economies due to their similar economic growth rates.
*A previous version of this story contained an error which has since been corrected.
