The decline of Chinese newspapers

Whenever the Chinese Diaspora goes from their home country to all corners of the world, they first set up an association or Kongsi, a temple, a cemetery, and a Chinese school.

Then, they establish a Chinese language newspaper, which serves as a crucial vehicle for the transmission of their language and their ethnic identity.

In Malaysia, the Sin Chew Daily was founded on January 15, 1929, by Aw Boon Par and Aw Boon Haw, founders of the Tiger Balm in Singapore.

The Nanyang Siang Pao was founded on September 5, 1923 also in Singapore by philanthropist Tan Kah Kee. Both papers have since changed hands many times.

By now, we are familiar with Benedict Anderson's famous theory that print capitalism is the crucial platform upon which individuals can imagine themselves as members of a single ethnic community. Nowhere is this truer than in Malaysia.

Since the 1930s, the Chinese newspapers - together with the guilds and associations and the Chinese schools financed and managed by them - have been the three legged tripod that allows the Chinese to cement their sense of self-identity and their common destiny.

Without these three institutions, the Chineseness of the Malaysian Chinese would have vanished long ago.

In the numerous coffee shops across the breadth and length of Malaysia, you will find copies of the Chinese newspapers on some tables somewhere, crumpled from too much reading and fingering by too many customers.

Essential reading in Chinese coffee-shops

Reading the newspapers in a coffee shop is the daily rituals of millions of Chinese in our country.

Naturally, discussions of the current news often follow after such reading. That is what makes the Chinese coffee shop the most prolific forum in Chinese politics.

Prior to and after Merdeka in 1957, the formation of Chinese and Chinese based political parties has added another dimension to this venture of ethnic narrative of the Malaysian Chinese.

Naturally, they all jostle for the public space in the Chinese newspapers to air their views.

In this, the MCA, and later the Gerakan, have the clear advantage. They are the component parties of the ruling Alliance, and then the Barisan Nasional coalition.

All the newspapers were and still are required to renew their publishing licence every year, and that put them at the mercy of the ruling parties.

Besides, the MCA and Gerakan were supported by most towkays and leaders of the Chinese guilds and associations. These are the big advertisers in the Chinese papers.

The revenue from advertisements of the Chinese press is still way ahead of Bahasa Malaysia publications like the Utusan Malaysia.

Operation Lalang marks the end

A vibrant Chinese private sector has been instrumental in the survival of the Chinese press in a hostile media environment.

The watershed in the evolution of the Chinese media industry has to be Operation Lalang in October 1987.

In the months and years leading to that infamous mass arrest of opposition and NGO dissenters in Malaysia, there was a whiff of spring in the air in Malaysia.

In the words of some Umno leading lights, the Star was said to be a newspaper "owned by the MCA, run by the MIC, for the benefit of the DAP."

Still in private hands, both the Sin Chew and the Nanyang were easily the most democratic newspapers in the country.

One budget speech by opposition leader Lim Kit Siang was reported in full in eight installements.

I should know; I was one of the translators. That is unheard of to-day.

In retrospect, I realise now that those major Chinese papers were run by very professional Chinese journalists.

Ong Ka Ting's hand?

But they were competing with one another in a limited market, and the DAP was hot news, having emerged from the 1986 general election with 24 parliamentary seats.

We used to joke that the Chinese press was freer than newspapers in other languages because the Malay officers watching over the newspapers in the Home Ministry could not read Chinese.

That was the time before the Chinese literate Ong Ka Ting (right) became the parliamentary Secretary of the Home Ministry.

Then, in 1987, there was the very emotive issue of sending Malay teachers to Chinese schools.

The whole Chinese community was up in arms, and a bipartisan meeting of Chinese parties and educational bodies was held at the Tien Hou Temple in KL, and the Chinese press gave them ample coverage.

Then, the Umno youth also went into action and had their own meeting, breathing brimstone and hellfire.

The situation in KL was said to be volatile, and Operation Lalang began. 106 opposition leaders, NGO activists, and educationists were arrested and detained under the ISA.

Sin Chew Jit Poh, together with The Star and Watan, were suspended from publication from various allegations.

In one fell swoop, the vibrant Chinese open and free press was cowed.

When Sin Chew resumed publication in 1988, it was bought over by Tiong Hiew King, a Sarawak timber tycoon, and a Sarawak United People Party (SUPP) leading light.

Control of news and public opinions thenceforth was exercised through direct ownership of the Chinese newspapers by politically connected crony capitalists.

The vibrant free Chinese press in Malaysia was half dead.

I was a columnist with Sin Chew until Operation Lalang. After Tiong's takeover of Sin Chew, I could still write for Nanyang, which was under the Hong Leong group.

Then, in 2001, Nanyang was bought over by Huaren Holdings, the investment arm of MCA that also owned the Star.

Chinese newspapers under BN monoploy

From then on, the major Chinese newspapers lost their independence. With all these newspapers in their pocket, the BN enjoys a monopoly in the control of information and opinions in the Chinese community.

Despite this monopoly, the MCA and the Gerakan still suffered unprecedented losses during the general election in 2008.

Obviously, the propaganda and the whitewashing in the Chinese newspapers had not fooled the Chinese people of Malaysia.

The moral authority of the Chinese newspapers in shaping public opinions has been eroded.

Part of the undoing was the rise of Internet news portals like Malaysiakini Chinese version, closely followed by the launching of the Merdeka Review in 2005.

Then a few months ago, The Rock News or Fung Yin Times was launched. A few days ago, the Malaysian Mirror also put their Chinese version on trial run.

The numerous commentators who have been exiled by Nanyang and Sin Chew can now be found on these news portals, offering Malaysian Chinese a different kind of political narrative, critical, independent, and very eloquent.

Sin Chew and Nanyang will continue to survive, though I am told that Nanyang is losing big money every year.

They will continue to survive because they carry financial and community news, which are largely absent from internet newspapers.

For political coverage and comments on current affairs though, these two Chinese papers are no better than the Star or New Straits Times.

It is ironic therefore, that these mainstream Chinese language newspapers should come under the racial ire of Utusan Malaysia.

In recent weeks, a certain Dr Mohamad Ridhuan Tee Abdullah, a senior lecturer of Universiti Pertahanan Nasional had been writing in Utusan Malaysia labelling Nanyang Siang Pao, Sin Chew Jit Poh, and China Press as being racist newspapers.

These newspapers have to cater to the ethnic aspirations of the Malaysian Chinese. But they are hardly racist.

They are not even the true champions of Chinese rights in Malaysia, in the sense of criticising the racist undertones of Utusan Malaysia and Umno in recent months.

The glorious days of the Chinese press are gone forever.