Opponents to the possible Malaysia-US FTA come from various backgrounds and some they have expressed legitimate concerns against the FTA. When I met Ronnie Liu of DAP several months ago, he expressed transparency as a reason to object the FTA. I could accept transparency as as reason but yet, I am convinced that transparency is not the main reason behind DAP’s objection to FTA. This is because transparency was only mentioned after I demonstrated an inconsistency in DAP’s stance in a wider context.
There are many arguments against the FTA that are simply based on simple misunderstanding of economic concepts. I will not touch on that simply however. What I am interested in discussing is the inconsistent.
DAP opposes the Bumiputra policy, in particular the NEP, because it is discriminatory. I myself am against the Bumiputra policy due to how it prevents the market from working freely. But this is not about me.
Proponents of the policy cite that the Bumiputra and really, the Malays, need time to build up its capacity to compete against other economically superior ethnic groups. Hence, the protection and privileges given to the Malays. It is common for the other side, not necessarily DAP but the lefties in general, to come back and say such protection and privileges do not build up the competency the Bumiputa needs to compete against others; it only encourages complacency among the Bumiputra.
Despite not buying into the argument for Bumiputra policy as well as stating how the policy is not helping, many of the same lefties employ the same argument used by the proponent of Bumiputra policy to support protectionism and oppose the FTA. This group argues that Malaysia needs time to build up its capacity to compete against other economically superior countries. When proponents of the FTA cites that protectionism does not encourage Malaysia to become competitive but instead, sowing complacency, they shrug it off, seemingly implying that such inconsistency as a minor inconvenient.
In the case of Ronnie Liu, he ran away from the subject and cited transparency instead.
Lefties will need to sort that out if they are to convince others to oppose the Malaysia-US FTA. Else, lefties that oppose both the Bumiputra policy and the FTA are giving the supporters of Bumiputra policy a leeway. Perhaps, stripping the lefties that moral authority to talk about one issue or the other.
