PETALING JAYA (Aug 30): It has been an open secret in the Chinese community that some Chinese gangs are registered with the Registry of Society (RoS).
Following Home Ministry's move to list 49 gangs as illegal groups, the Chinese dailies worked on the expose.
In a report titled 'Registered as civil groups to run activities, Chinese gangs are now corporatised', Sin Chew Daily quoted a government officer as saying, Chinese gangs are eventually corporatised as they would register with RoS as an organisation, and then operate legally.
These registered groups would admit members and run various activities.
Unlike gangs of the other races, Chinese gangs are not territorial through fighting but they set up associations to build up their territory and maintain the social order of the local society, the source said.
The source further revealed that these organisations use legal entities as camouflage to run all sorts of illegal activities including the likes of money-laundering enabling these organisations to expand into even bigger organisations.
Sin Chew was told that in the government's record, there are two main gangs in Negeri Sembilan, both are operating as non-governmental organisations or associations.
One of the mainstream gangs has 40 branches, with an estimation of over 2,000 members while another has more than ten branches with more than 1,000 members.
Hoong Men and Wah Kee are two mainstream Chinese gangs in which most of the small gangs are offshoots of them.
According to the Oriental Daily News, gangs that have been declared as illegal including 04, 08, 24, 18 and 36 are under Wah Kee (Wah Kee itself has been declared illegal too) while some other illegal gangs Loh Kuan, Tiang Yee Thong, Sio Sam Ong, Hong Hong San, Jit It Hai, Geng Leng Hor, 35, 303 are all under Hoong Men.
These two triads – Wah Kee and Hoong Men – have a history that can be traced back to Tian Di Hui (Heaven and Earth Society) that was active during Qing Dynasty in China.
According to the report, secret groups in mainland China penetrated into this land through Chinese immigrants two centuries ago. Early groups include Hai San and Ghee Hin – two prominent Chinese groups which made their marks into our history books.
After a process of evolution and elimination, Hoong Men and Wah Kee are now two main streams that remain.
Wee: MCA never supports 210 minutes BM lessons
MCA Youth chief Wee Ka Siong clarified that MCA has never supported the proposal of fixing Bahasa Malaysia teaching time in Chinese primary schools at 210 minutes per week, China Press reported.
Instead, he said, the final decision must be made after a consultation and under the consent of all relevant parties.
The former deputy minister of education told a press conference yesterday, "We (MCA) and the Chinese community have never agreed on 270 minutes. All these are just a wishful statement of the Curriculum Development Unit."
He said, MCA and the Chinese community have been standing firm in opposing the proposal because the education standard in Chinese primary school is incomparable with the national school.
He emphasised that both forementioned parties were not opposing the government's plan emotionally but they were backed with academic reports and opposition from the practitioners and education scholars.
Wee pointed out that, while government proposed 270 minutes of BM teaching in the Education Blueprint 2013-2025, the Indian and Chinese communities are mooting 240 minutes and 210 minutes respectively. The differences must be dealt with before the release of the final report, he said.
Meanwhile Oriental Daily News reported that Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Hua Zong) will be meeting the Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in eight days to discuss on the blueprint which scheduled to be launched on Sept 6.