In his blogpost, Mahathir said the immigrants will not confine themselves to their enclaves and will want to go places to do business.
“They will take a huge chunk of the businesses from local businesses, largely Malaysian-Chinese owned.”
The pattern can already be seen, Mahathir said, as many contracts for the construction of high-rise buildings had been won by them.
“The mainland Chinese will compete with Malaysian businesses for contracts. The small and medium enterprises will also face competition from them.”
He stressed he welcomed foreign direct investments just like he welcomed FDI from any country but not the kind that China is bringing to Malaysia.
“It is not about investing in manufacturing industries in Malaysia. It is about acquiring land in Malaysia, building settlements, towns and cities which are to be sold to mainland Chinese who will come and live here.
“They will not number in the hundreds or thousands but in millions,” he said.
Mahathir said the Chinese are welcome to invest in industries in Malaysia. But just like Malaysia does not welcome mass immigration of Indians, Pakistanis, Europeans or Africans into Malaysia, the same stance should be adopted on Chinese immigration into Malaysia.
The statement, he said, was not about being anti-foreign or anti-Chinese but about being pro-Malaysia.
China Chinese will also monopolise the businesses as they will not only be building structures but also be bringing their own workers from the mainland China.
“They can build a 5-star hotels complete with interior decoration and landscaping in eight months. And they are operating them themselves in the areas they have developed in Johor,” he said.
China Chinese are making their presence felt in Johor. One of the mega projects to be built by China developers is Forest City there.
Forest City encompasses the development of facilities for business, tourism, hotel, residence, services and others.
The 1,386-hectare Forest City will be built on four man-made islands in Iskandar Malaysia.
Mahathir had recently said 700,000 Chinese nationals will be brought into Forest City.
Johor Menteri Besar Mohamed Khaled Nordin told Bernama the allegation was made only as a provocation to scare Johoreans and as a tactic to see Johor fail to achieve its aspirations.