According to this report in the media on 23 Nov 2024, a brass band comprising 25 members from the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) welcomed the arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln, famous for having been featured in the Hollywood blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick, which docked at Port Klang Cruise Terminal (PKCT) on 23 Nov 2024.
The Commander of the USS Abraham Lincoln reportedly said the 5,000 crew members were excited to call to Port Klang and are looking forward to learning the culture and spending some time in Kuala Lumpur.
Back in Oct 2024, both the MP for Indera Mahkota and Permatang Pauh raised a ruckus when it was disclosed that 2 Chinese Navy vessels with some 1,000 personnel on board docked in Penang for 3 days.
Reportedly, some of the 1,000 personnel dropped by a private high school in George Town, where they sang and played friendly games of table tennis and basketball with the students.
For the visit by the Chinese navy vessels, the MP for Indera Mahkota, who was once the Minister for Foreign Affairs, queried the warm and festive reception given to the Chinese vessel and its personnel while the MP for Permatang Pauh called those in the Madani government as irresponsible for allowing the nation’s sovereignty to be easily intruded.
Going back to March 2000, the USS Decatur an ARLEIGH BURKE missile destroyer reportedly docked in Kota Kinabalu Sabah where the crewmembers stay at Magellan Resort Hotel in Kota Kinabalu and participate in whitewater rafting and Orangutan Sanctuary tours in Sabah.
In 2012, USS John C. Stennis, an aircraft carrier with a 5,500-member crew and carrying 70 aircrafts onboard also docked at the Sepanggar Naval Base in Kota Kinabalu Sabah.
Then in August 2017, the amphibious assault ship USS America, with 2,500 sailors and has 28 various aircraft on board and other assets reportedly docked at the Sepanggar Naval Base in Kota Kinabalu Sabah.
In the same year, 2017, 2 South Korean navy warships with a combined crew of 630 sailors also docked at the Sepanggar Naval Base.
The following year, 2018, an American amphibious assault ship USS Essex also docked at the Sepanggar Naval Base after participating in a Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) exercise with Royal Malaysian sailors and marines.
Then in April 2019, the USS Blue Ridge, the US’ 7th Fleet flagship, last docked at the Sepanggar Naval Base in 2011, arrived and docked at the same Naval Base with a crew of 1,050 onboard.
On Oct 27, 2022, US navy vessel USS Milius which is a missile destroyer docked in Kota Kinabalu and the sailors visited a school for stateless children in Papar, where they held community building activities and sports.
In the same month, Oct 2022, a New Zealand Navy replenishment ship HMNZS Aotearoa reportedly docked at the Sepanggar Naval Base on its way to Busan, Republic of Korea.
While the MP for Permatang Pauh can be excused for his naivety – he was born in 1983 and became an Assemblymen in 2018 - where was the MP for Indera Mahkota who first became a Member of Parliament in 8 Mac 2008 during all the above visits by American naval ships to ports in Malaysia?
In an interview with the news blog, the New Mandala in Feb 2019, soon after he was appointed as the Minister of Foreign Affairs under the 1st PH government, when asked about lack of awareness of or interest in foreign policy, even among MPs, the MP for Indera Mahkota reportedly said, to quote, ad verbatim,
Obviously he must have forgotten what he said when he rants about the warm and festive reception given to the Chinese vessel in Oct 2024.
Now, almost 2 months later after that episode, why the silence from him and also the MP for Permatang Pauh on the visit by USS Abraham Lincoln in Port Klang?
Or both Indera Mahkota and Permatang Pauh shared a similar view as Dr Mahathir that they are ok with orang putih's naval vessels but not vessels from china docking in Malaysia?
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