Tun M Receives Highest Honour in Japan, Becomes Third Leader in Asia to Get Award

Congratulations Tun M! 

Japan just awarded our beloved prime minister with the highest honour they can give to a person of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s calibre. According to The Star, the man was bestowed with the “Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers” by Emperor Akihito of Japan. 

They have given this award to Tun M because he has contributed a lot in strengthening the “bilateral ties” between Malaysia and Japan. The prestigious conferment ceremony took place at the Imperial Palace in Japan at around 8.45am (Malaysian time). In Japan time-zone, the ceremony took place at 9.45am.

Source: twitter

Why is this award so special, you ask? 

Well, it’s because this award is the highest honour Japan can give to a leader or statesman of a foreign country for their contributions towards strengthening bilateral relations between their own country and Japan. Besides that, their contributions to the region are also taken into account for the award.

Source: wikimedia commons

What makes this conferment even more amazing is that Tun M is now the third Asian leader to receive the illustrious “Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers”. Fuyoh, power lah Dr M! Besides Tun M, this award was also gifted to the late Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore and former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh.

Source: scroll. In

Upon receiving the award, many Malaysians including politicians expressed their joy via Twitter as they wished him well for the astounding achievement. You can read some the tweets below:

Only the 20th foreign recipients of this prestigious award since it was first established in 1888. You all can go brag about your bought-from titles but Tun M is in a class of his own. Syabas Tun!

— The Malay Observer (@mlyobserver) November 6, 2018

Congrats Tun for being awarded Japan’s most prestigious award. Moga perjuangan Tun untuk mengubah minda dan budaya rakyat Malaysia secara keseluruhan, menemui kejayaan.
It’s not easy, but change starts with each and everyone of us.

— Syed Saddiq (@SyedSaddiq) November 6, 2018

Congrats Tun M. It depicted strong relationship & high respect from the Japan Govt to Malaysia too ?⚘⚘⚘@chedetofficial @saifuddinabd @AzminAli @MalaysiaMFA https://t.co/PZQytHEREB

— Tengku Adnin (@adnin63690080) November 6, 2018

We are very proud that Tun M, our prime minister, has managed to bag the highest award from Japan for his efforts in strengthening bilateral ties between Malaysia and Japan. That said, we only hope that Tun M will achieve more awards as such in the near future. Congrats Dr M! 

Also read: Tun M to Receive Highest Honour From Indonesian Govt During Official Visit