Speaking to FMT, Dennis Ignatius in fact congratulated Pua for his frankness in telling the BBC that the finance ministry believed money paid out to the Chinese company for a project was eventually channelled to parties associated with the Najib Razak administration.
“From the details that are becoming available, these transactions certainly look very suspicious,” he said, adding that Beijing seemed concerned only with profits and selling technology, equipment and management expertise.
Ignatius, whose last posting was as high commissioner to Canada, once served in China.
He theorised that the Chinese company went along with suspicious transactions for the sake of maintaining relations with the Najib government.
He said he was confident that Beijing would renegotiate contracts as judiciously as possible to ensure good relations with the Pakatan Harapan government.
“The Chinese understand full well that what happened in Malaysia with these contracts has dented their reputation in the region and they have a strong incentive to set things right.”
He said he was not surprised that in the weeks after the May 9 polls, China sent a “higher than usual” number of delegations to Malaysia for engagement with the new government. “It’s a good sign,” he added.
He welcomed what he described as “straight talk” from Pua on the 1MDB issue, saying the Malaysian public needed to “know what really happened, who was responsible, how the previous administration covered up so many things and so on.
“It’s the only way to make sure these things don’t happen again. I think Beijing understands that it is not directed against China.”
Pua is an aide of Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng. According to the BBC, he hinted at previously unreported links between 1MDB and two pipeline projects in Kedah and Sabah that were awarded to China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau, a company connected to businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low.
The two projects – the Multi-Product Pipeline and Trans-Sabah Gas Pipeline – made headlines last month when Lim announced that 88% of the contract cost, amounting to RM8.3 billion, had been paid although only 13% of the work had been completed.